Ian Lucas: In north-east Wales, the North East Wales Institute of Higher Education is concentrating on developing links with industry because we want to develop an entrepreneurial spirit in the area. Does my hon. Friend agree that the establishment of a university in north-east Wales for the first time in its history would make a huge contribution to the entrepreneurial spirit in the area, and will he do all he can to assist that step?

Ian Pearson: As my hon. Friend knows, both higher education policy and support for enterprise are matters for the Welsh Assembly Government, and the status of institutions is a matter for the relevant authorities in Wales. However, he is right to draw attention to the importance of universities' working closely with business. I know that the North East Wales Institute has a strong track record in working with the aerospace sector and a number of other important sectors in that part of the world. My hon. Friend will have to take the matter up with the Welsh Assembly Government directly, but I wish him and the institute every success.

Ian Pearson: The hon. Gentleman is certainly right about the fact that we want to encourage more entrepreneurship in our universities. According to a study published earlier this week by the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship, our universities need to do more. In fact they have transformed themselves over the past 10 years, but if I were asked whether more needs to be done my answer would obviously be yes. If we are to ensure that we have a successful, competitive United Kingdom economy in the future, we need our universities to work ever more closely with business.
	I should be happy to make inquiries about Aberystwyth university's entrepreneurship programme. Although the NCGE survey suggests more or less gender-equal access, I am sure that there is more we could do.

Evan Harris: I share the sentiment expressed so eloquently by the Minister at the end of his answer, but does he accept that getting the data right is key? Does he also accept that he should be measured on progress since 1997, rather than picking out what might appear to be a random year for each individual subject? Will he stick to a constant set of data on STEM entrants and base it to 1997 so we can all monitor progress effectively?

Ian Pearson: We are always happy to publish time-series of data in these areas. I was trying to indicate that there has been an increasing problem but that there are some signs that the situation is getting better. It is particularly pleasing that University Colleges Admissions Service acceptances are up by 9 per cent. for maths, 9 per cent. for chemistry and 12 per cent. for physics compared with the previous year. But there is a problem, particularly in computer science, and in that we do not have enough qualified physics teachers in our schools.
	Let us not forget some of the progress that has been made, or that the level of science graduates aged between 25 and 34 in the UK work force is higher than in the United States, Germany or Japan. In fact, our figures are 50 per cent. higher than the European Union average. There are a range of further things that we as a Government need to do to encourage the STEM agenda, but we should not forget where we are today in terms of the labour market.

Ian Pearson: My Department has been in existence for only just over three months so it is a little difficult to refer to such figures. The simple fact of the matter is that the science budget was £1.3 billion when we came to power in 1997 and it is £3.4 billion now, so it has more than doubled—and it will have more than trebled by the end of this comprehensive spending review period. We now have 150,000 more undergraduate students studying science subjects than in 1997-98, so we are making considerable progress. There is a challenge, however. David Sainsbury's report, which the hon. Gentleman is waving around, talks about the race to the top, and that is exactly where we need to go. That is why the Government are implementing in full the findings and recommendations of the Sainsbury review, and we are launching a debate on how we can move beyond Sainsbury. I want us to have the world's best innovation eco-system. We are starting from a strong position, but we can and must do better.

Ian Pearson: I am always happy to have discussions with my colleagues in the DCSF on the STEM agenda and how we can encourage both more young men and women to take science subjects. We currently fund a UK resource centre that is specifically targeted at encouraging more women to take up science subjects, but I will be happy to have the discussions my hon. Friend recommends.

John Denham: That is a very important question. At the moment, responsibility for that matter is led by the sector skills councils, as well as my Department, and we have enormous support from the private sector, particularly through the apprenticeship ambassadors' network of senior employers. However, the hon. Gentleman has put his finger on a really important question—whether the apprenticeship programme as a whole needs a clearer focus and leadership. That issue was raised by the House of Lords report on apprenticeships, and we are looking at it and a number of other issues. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced a couple of weeks ago that we want to reform the programme so that a young person who qualifies for an apprenticeship effectively has a credit—the value that we are prepared to pay to them to fund the apprenticeship—so it becomes clear to an employer that the value of taking on an apprenticeship might be £3,000, £5,000 or even £15,000. That will really encourage the small businesses that the hon. Gentleman is talking about.

John Hayes: In answer to my parliamentary questions, the right hon. Gentleman acknowledged that the number of advanced apprenticeships has fallen, but he admitted that he does not know how many are provided by employers directly. He talks about the House of Lords report, which said that of the 130,000 businesses that the Prime Minister claims are providing apprenticeships, many are in fact private training providers. Yet in 2002, the Government agreed with their own advisory committee that apprenticeships should be employer-led, with training providers acting as agents providing support for work-based schemes, rather than providing the bulk of training. Five years on, the Government have failed to honour that agreement. Is that not because on apprenticeships, as with so much else, this Government are just bluff, bluster and blunder?

Henry Bellingham: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman recognises the role of small businesses; incidentally, I am very glad that he has been appointed Secretary of State because he will do an absolutely first-class job. However, can he confirm that figures from his own Department reveal that the number of 16 to 18-year-olds not in education, employment or training—the so-called NEETs—has gone up from 154,000 in 1997 to a staggering 206,000 in 2006? Is that figure not an absolute disgrace and an indictment of his Government?

John Denham: No, because what went hand in hand with the Conservative Government's approach was huge numbers of long-term young unemployed people who were out of work year after year. The new deal has achieved an end to that long-term youth unemployment. There is an issue to address of young people in and out of work. Too many young people are not engaged in education, work or training, but what we are doing, both in the short term and by raising the participation age, is the best way of ensuring that that group of young people does not slip through the system. Because we will introduce diplomas and strengthen the apprenticeship system, the offer in place for young people will be of higher quality than we have been able to provide in the past. That is the attraction that will keep them in the system.

Kerry McCarthy: I thank the Minister for that response. I welcome the answer given by the Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education in response to the previous question about the fact that pupils receiving educational maintenance allowances will get confirmation at 16 that they will be entitled to a grant. Could the Secretary of State tell me what is being done to reach out to people who leave education but then want to re-enter it slightly later, and to educate them and to inform them about their rights to grants?

Chris Bryant: The way in which the package of measures for maintenance grants and tuition fees available to students in England and Wales is arranged means that there is a financial incentive for Welsh students to go only to Welsh universities. Does the Secretary of State agree that it would be profoundly depressing if we had reached a situation where youngsters in the Rhondda, one of the most disadvantaged areas in the country, went only to Welsh universities? Will he engage in conversations with his counterpart in the Welsh Assembly to ensure that youngsters in my constituency have a full range of possibilities when they come to go to university?

Robert Wilson: If the Government are serious about improving skills, why have the Government cut £100 million from institutions devoted to part-time and mature students? The funding change was sneaked out over the summer by the Secretary of State, probably because it contradicts the Leitch report. It appears that the Government do not wish to support graduates who need to retrain.
	Following on from what my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Hollobone) said, can the Minister explain how ripping £8 million out of Birkbeck college's budget and £30 million from the Open university's budget increases opportunities and improves skills? Does that not send out the message that the Government have abandoned—

Ian Pearson: No, I do not agree. Actually, the target for the United Kingdom is not by 2010 but by 2014. In fact, a target of 2.5 per cent. of research and development at aggregate level does not make a lot of sense; it is a crude input measure. Yes, we want increased R and D, and on Monday the Government published the 2007 R and D scorecard, which shows that our top-performing companies are increasingly investing in R and D; the top 850 are up 9 per cent. this year, which is welcome progress.
	The hon. Lady raised the issue of hard or easy school subjects. We talked earlier about the STEM agenda. The Government are doing a lot of work to encourage people to take science, technology, engineering and mathematics and we are seeing some real progress, but that is due to the hard work of many individuals over several years.

John Denham: Apprenticeship places are created by employers, who do that because they believe that it will help them to meet their skills needs. By introducing the credit that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced a few weeks ago, we hope to make the financial support available to employers much clearer. With that, and the further reforms that we will produce later this year with our draft apprenticeship reform Bill, we can make sure that apprenticeships are of a uniformly high quality. We inherited a situation in which fewer than 30 per cent. of apprenticeships were completed. We have done far better than the Conservative Government, with far more apprenticeships.

Harriet Harman: The business for the week commencing 19 November will be—
	Monday 19 November—Second Reading of the European Communities (Finance) Bill.
	Tuesday 20 November—Second Reading of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (Supplementary Provisions) Bill.
	Wednesday 21 November—Opposition day [1st allotted day] there will be a debate on health care associated infections, followed by a debate entitled "Failure of the Government to Pursue Schools Reform".
	Thursday 22 November—Topical debate—subject to be announced, followed by Second Reading of the Sale of Student Loans Bill.
	Friday 23 November—The House will not be sitting.
	The provisional business for the week commencing 26 November will include:
	Monday 26 November—Second Reading of the Health and Social Care Bill.
	Later today, the House will have the first of the topical debates under the new system. I have chosen the subject of immigration. Members should contact me to propose subjects for future topical debates. Each week, the subject I have chosen for a debate on a Thursday will be put on the annunciator on Monday evening.

Theresa May: I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the future business. Last week, I asked her what had happened to Regional Select Committees. Yet again she talked about regional accountability, but not Regional Select Committees. Will she make a statement on the Government's position? Do they believe in Regional Select Committees or not?
	The mandate for EUFOR, the peacekeeping force in Bosnia, expires on 21 November. Its renewal is vital. The 10 December deadline for the final status of Kosovo is approaching, still without any indication of an agreement. May we have a statement from the Foreign Secretary on the situation in the region and the status of EUFOR's mandate?
	When the Government introduced 24-hour drinking, we opposed the decision because of the obvious impact on crime and public health, but the then Home Secretary rubbished our argument, and said:
	"This is a committed and coherent effort to promote responsible drinking".
	The Nuffield Council on Bioethics says:
	"There is...an urgent need for an analysis of the effect...on...alcohol consumption, as well as on anti-social behaviour",
	but all that we have had from the Prime Minister is a half-hint to the media, some spun headlines and no change in policy, so may we have a debate in Government time on the impact of the ill-considered licensing reforms?
	On Home Office targets, the chief executive of the National Policing Improvement Agency says:
	"Because...a stolen milk bottle counted the same as...a murder",
	the police concentrate on
	"volume crime rather than serious crime."
	After 10 years, five Home Secretaries and countless Criminal Justice Acts, the police seem too busy to solve major crimes, so may we have a debate in Government time on Labour's total failure to get a grip on serious and violent crime?
	Today it has been reported that the Government want to extend the period for which terror suspects can be held without trial to 58 days. The Leader of the House has consistently said that such announcements should be made to the House first, but yesterday, when the Prime Minister made his security statement, he made no mention of 58 days. In interviews two days ago, the Home Secretary refused to set a limit. What changed the Home Secretary's mind? Why did the Prime Minister not announce the decision to Parliament in yesterday's statement, and when will the Home Secretary come to the House to make a statement?
	At 08.20 yesterday, Admiral Lord West said he was not
	"fully convinced that we...need more than 28 days".
	By 9.05 he said that he was "personally, absolutely" convinced. Another Minister in the Government of all the talents, the noble Lord Jones of Birmingham, attacked the Government's change to capital gains tax, saying that it is a "terrible thing". The noble Lord Malloch-Brown—another GOAT, currently resident in Admiralty house—believes that we need to talk more to Hezbollah but less to Washington. With every passing week, the Prime Minister's big tent looks more like a circus marquee, so may we have a debate in Government time on collective ministerial responsibility?
	Mr. Speaker, you couldn't make it up. Finally, may we have a debate on maritime safety, in which we could discuss the appropriate use of maritime flags. Yesterday the Admiral Lord West raised the maritime flag D: "Keep clear: I'm manoeuvring with difficulty." Perhaps the Prime Minister should have raised flag M: "My vessel is stopped and is making no way through the water." Is it not time that he pulled into port and let another captain take over the job?

Harriet Harman: The shadow Leader of the House raises a number of serious points, one of which was about regional accountability. The Government remain committed to strengthening accountability, through the House, for regions in England. That is the position that we are taking forward, but we need to discuss how we develop proposals. We have suggested that the issue be looked at by the Modernisation Committee; as the right hon. Lady is a member of it, she knows that it will discuss regional accountability. Our position remains absolutely clear: we want strengthened regional accountability to the House. The exact form of that accountability will be a matter for discussion and agreement within the House.
	The right hon. Lady mentioned EUFOR, to which the Foreign Secretary referred when he led the debate on the Queen's Speech. The right hon. Lady and other colleagues will, if they see fit, have the opportunity to raise the issue again in Foreign Office questions on Tuesday.
	The right hon. Lady raised the issue of alcohol consumption; I know that that is a concern among Members on both sides of the House. That may well be a subject for a topical debate, as it seems to be topical almost on a weekly basis.
	The right hon. Lady talked about Home Office targets for the police. I do not accept the idea that the police treat the crime of a stolen milk bottle and murder with the same seriousness; I think that that is completely wrong, and a wrong point.
	The House had an extensive discussion about detention yesterday, following a statement by the Prime Minister. The Home Secretary has made it clear that she will seek discussions with all parties. We want to have the right powers to protect everyone in this country and the right safeguards for all suspects. Proposals will be brought before the House, hopefully on the basis of an agreement across all parties. We will continue to consult and hope that agreement will be reached.

David Heath: Following yesterday's statement, may we have a further statement outlining the details and practicalities of the e-borders proposals? Given that 90 items of information can be required of people going in or out of our airports, which will be an El Dorado for identity theft, what security measures will be in place at every airport to make sure that that information does not get into the wrong hands?
	On 4 July the Prime Minister said that
	"the extradition treaty with the United States is a matter for continuing discussion."—[ Official Report, 4 July 2007; Vol. 462, c. 954.]
	As many of us still feel that the extradition treaty is one-sided and unfair and needs urgent revision, may we, as a House, join in that continuing discussion?
	May we have a statement on the arrangements for the loan to Northern Rock? Yesterday the Prime Minister refused to answer questions on the terms of the loan to Northern Rock on grounds of commercial confidentiality. As that information has been freely available on the internet and is in the hands of every banker, market maker and trader, why is the British citizen—the taxpayer—the only person who is not allowed to know what has been done with our money in that respect?
	Lastly, may we have a debate on multitasking, with particular reference to the Home Secretary? When she was reporting the latest fiasco to have befallen the Home Office—only four months after the event—the Home Secretary said that she wants to be a Minister who acts rather than talks about that situation. May I gently suggest that we want a Minister who does both?

Several hon. Members: rose —

Mr. Speaker: Order. I ask hon. Members to ask about next week's business. It is easy to get a question in, but we are supposed to be debating the business for next week.

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend will have an opportunity—not next week, but in due course—further to debate his important point. Provision is made in the Queen's Speech for a Bill to ensure correct controls on party campaign funding at elections. I agree that we must tackle the problem of the arms race. No one wants to see more and more money being spent by the parties in an arms race on election spending, particularly when fewer and fewer people are voting, so it is right to move forward on tackling that arms race.

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend's point is one of the reasons proper consideration is necessary of how regional accountability is to be introduced. I pay tribute to the work of Select Committees. All Members will recognise that they have enormously improved the House's scrutiny of the Executive. We want to make sure that we bring in strong, robust, credible, regional accountability, but in the process we must in no way damage the important work of departmental Select Committees.

Harriet Harman: First, I said that it would come shortly. Then I reassured the House that it would come very shortly. Last week, it was imminent. Today, I can say that the time draws nearer and nearer —the time that will surely come.

Justine Greening: May we have a debate in the House on the capacity of local police teams and community safety teams to deliver on Government targets? My part of London now has fewer police than it had a decade ago. Our policing is 24 headcount below the budgeted total that it is meant to have. At the same time, safe and stronger community funds are being cut. Meanwhile, only yesterday, the Prime Minister talked about what needs to be done in communities such as mine to help national security. May we have a debate on the overall Government strategy, so that we can make sure that it works as a whole?

Harriet Harman: I will bring the hon. Lady's comments to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and ask her to write to the hon. Lady. She is struggling under a misapprehension. Her constituency has more police than 10 years ago.

Harriet Harman: Indeed, it has. There are more police community support officers, and a big investment has been made. I will invite my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to write to the hon. Lady and place a copy in the House of Commons Library, as other Members are showing an interest in this point.

Louise Ellman: My right hon. and learned Friend might be aware that I have been campaigning for justice for my constituent, Michael Shields, who has now been transferred from prison in Bulgaria to prison in this country. Now that there is confusion about whether it is appropriate for the Bulgarian or the United Kingdom authorities to consider granting a pardon for Michael Shields, will she ensure that there is a debate or if not, a statement in the House?

David Taylor: I strongly endorse what was said by the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig). Forty-five days ago, we raised the minimum legal age for purchasing tobacco products to 18. Can the Leader of the House tell us whether, if any of those who entered today's ballot for private Members' Bills are successful, the Government will back the sentiments of early-day motion 235, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Ms Butler)?
	 [ That this House welcomes the increased legal minimum age of sale for tobacco products from 16 to 18 years of age; notes that, according to a recent survey by the British Retail Consortium, retail crime has increased by 50 per cent.; notes retailers' concern that they may face intimidation or violence as a result of the change and that smaller independent retailers are at greatest risk; further notes that fixed penalty notices can be issued to those under the age of 18 years who attempt to buy alcohol; considers that if it was an offence for those under the age of 18 years to attempt to purchase tobacco this would act as a deterrent to children from doing so and relieve pressure on shop owners and reduce potential violence; and calls upon the Government to bring forward proposals to bring into line the legal penalties for the attempted purchase of tobacco with that of alcohol as well as increasing support in all areas for under 18s to quit smoking.]
	I tabled an amendment, early-day motion 325A1, which reads:
	 [after  'proposals' , insert  ' both to ban cigarette vending machines from which under 1 8s can buy tobacco products and' .]
	The amended motion envisages the creation of an offence of attempting to purchase tobacco under 18—similar to the existing offence involving alcohol, and attracting a fixed penalty notice—and the banning of cigarette vending machines, which constitute a way of overcoming the important public health legislation introduced on 1 October.

Robert Key: Please will the Leader of the House ask the Minister for Roads to come to the House on Tuesday and make a statement on the A303 Stonehenge upgrade project? Twenty-one years ago, when the Leader of the House and I were fresh young Members, it was identified as a flagship project. Ten years ago the Culture, Media and Sport Committee branded Stonehenge a national disgrace, and there was a public inquiry. Three years ago the inspector submitted a report to Ministers, but a decision has not yet been announced. We need an announcement, not just for the benefit of my constituents who regularly experience gridlock but for the benefit of the whole economy of the south-west and, above all, for the sake of the heritage aspect of Stonehenge. It is a world heritage site. If we do not get a decision soon we shall have years more dither, and we cannot afford that as a nation.

John Bercow: Early-day motion 279 is entitled "Scope's no vote, no choice campaign"—
	 [That this House notes the significant difficulty many disabled people with communication impairments face in getting the Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) equipment they need to communicate; further notes that as many as 600,000 people in the UK could benefit from access to AAC equipment; further notes that without the means to communicate people cannot express themselves freely, discuss ideas or make choices, which severely limits their life chances; further notes that freedom of expression is a fundamental right enshrined in the Human Rights Act 1998; regrets that access to AAC equipment remains a lottery for most people based on age, postcode and education status; further regrets that 23 per cent. of respondents to Scope's recent No Voice, No Choice survey had not had an assessment of their communication needs before they were 16 years old; further regrets that over one quarter of respondents to the same survey had to pay for equipment themselves or ask a charity because they could not get their equipment funded by a statutory agency; and calls on the Government to recognise communication as a fundamental right and ensure that people with communication impairments of all ages get the AAC equipment and support they need so they can lead more independent lives, access work, leisure and education opportunities and fulfil their potential as full citizens.]
	May we please have a debate in Government time on the Floor of the House next week on the provision of alternative and augmentative equipment for those with communication impairments who need such equipment? Given that Scope and others have estimated that approximately 600,000 people in the country could benefit from such equipment, given that 23 per cent. of people who need it are not assessed for it until they reach the age of 16, and given that more than a quarter of deserving cases cannot obtain statutory funding for such aids and must therefore either pay for them themselves or secure charitable support, is it not high time that we had a debate on how we can improve provision so that people who are in desperate need can lead independent lives, gain access to education, work and leisure and have the opportunity to realise their full potential?

Peter Bone: Kettering hospital, which my constituents must attend, has the worst rate of clostridium difficile in the country. Their chance of contracting it is three times the national average. Unfortunately one of my constituents caught the infection on going into hospital, and died some months later. When the relatives went to register the death, the registrar wanted to put something other than C. difficile on the death certificate. When the relatives queried it, the registrar said, "We do not like to put it down because it makes our figures look bad." May we have a debate in Government time—while the Leader of the House is still in her prime—on the fact that the Government seem to be fiddling the figures rather than dealing with the underlying problem?

Mark Harper: The Leader of the House will know—I wrote to her last week with the information—that the performance of Government Departments in answering named day questions varies; some are very good, some are very poor. The Ministry of Defence and the Department for Work and Pensions are particularly appalling. The MOD only answers 22 per cent. of named day questions on the due date and the DWP answers only 30 per cent. Mr. Speaker, I know the importance that you attach to Ministers answering questions from hon. Members on a timely basis. What action will the Leader of the House take to get her more recalcitrant Government colleagues to pull their socks up and treat this House with courtesy and respect?

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. I thank him for the information that he has brought to my attention, which I shall raise forcefully with my ministerial colleagues. The whole point of this House is to hold the Executive to account. Ministers do not operate on their own behalf; they operate in the public interest and are accountable to this place for what they do. Parliamentary questions are very important in that respect and I shall take forward his points.

Secretary Hazel Blears, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer Darling, Secretary Des Browne, Secretary Hilary Benn, Mr. Secretary Hutton, Yvette Cooper and Mr. Iain Wright, presented a Bill to establish the Homes and Communities Agency and make provision about it; to abolish the Urban Regeneration Agency and the Commission for the New Towns and make provision in connection with their abolition; to regulate social housing; to enable the abolition of the Housing Corporation; to make provision about sustainability certificates, landlord and tenant matters, building regulations and mobile homes; to make further provision about housing; and for connected purposes. And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Monday 19 November, and to be printed [Bill 8]. Explanatory notes to be printed [Bill 8EN].

Secretary Alan Johnson, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer Darling, Secretary Jacqui Smith, Secretary Des Browne, Mr. Secretary Hutton, Mr. Secretary Hain, Secretary Hazel Blears, Secretary Ed Balls, Mr. Secretary Woodward and Mr. Ben Bradshaw, presented a Bill to establish and make provision in connection with a Care Quality Commission; to make provision about health care (including provision about the National Health Service) and about social care; to make provision about reviews and investigations under the Mental Health Act 1983; to establish and make provision in connection with an Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator and make other provision about the regulation of the health care professions; to confer power to modify the regulation of social care workers; to amend the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984; to provide for the payment of a grant to women in connection with pregnancy; to amend the functions of the Health Protection Agency; and for connected purposes. And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Monday 19 November, and to be printed [Bill 9]. Explanatory notes to be printed [Bill 9EN].

Liam Byrne: I beg to move,
	That this House has considered the matter of immigration.
	Mr. Speaker, I am very grateful for the opportunity to open this debate and to break some new ground in the modernisation of this place. As the House will imagine, I was delighted to be informed by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House earlier this week that I would have the honour of opening this debate. I think that we can say with a rare degree of confidence that this afternoon's debate is certainly a question and is certainly topical.
	I am delighted that the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) is to answer for the Opposition. We are fast becoming pioneers of constitutional innovation; I reject the label "guinea pig." Both of us saw the UK Borders Act 2007 through one of the first public evidence sessions at Committee stage. I can assure the House that although a Conservative, the hon. Member for Ashford gives an excellent impression of being someone comfortable with the modern world. Indeed, that is one of the reasons why he is such a successful deputy to the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis).
	I do not plan to detain the House for long, as today is an opportunity for us to hear from right hon. and hon. Members about one of the most important questions in public life today. I will confine my remarks to a few points. Eighteen months ago my right hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (John Reid) provided the House with one of the more memorable analyses of what he felt he found in a Government Department. He later asked me to lead a programme of reform, which is now beginning to deliver results. My right hon. Friend said at the time that change would not be instant, but nevertheless reform of migration control was essential and achievable. He said at the time that
	"there are problems that can be resolved but I do not pretend to you that they are going to be resolved quickly."
	A year and a bit on, I believe that we are beginning to see some of these reforms bear fruit. We are around 100 days away from the introduction of a points system for migration control, which means that only those whom this country needs will be able to come and work and study.

Liam Byrne: I have learned not to make projections about future numbers but my right hon. Friend will know that where it is possible for us to impose restrictions on new accession countries, we plan to use the powers that we have under the different EU treaties. That is the decision we took when we renewed our policy towards Bulgaria and Romania.
	When we set the points score for migrants, we will listen to independent advice on where in the economy we need migration and where we do not, and on the wider impact of migration. Both the independent committees are now fully up and running. Once policy is set, it is vital that that policy be enforced. It is for that reason that today about half the world's population now need a fingerprint visa to come to the UK. Yesterday we signed contracts for systems that will, in time, screen all travellers against no-fly lists and intercept lists. At our borders from January, a unified border force will deliver tougher policing of our airports and ports as the Prime Minister set out yesterday. Following Royal Assent a week or two ago of the UK Borders Act, and in addition to the Terrorism Act 2000, that force will have the powers it needs from the outset.

Liam Byrne: I shall talk about numbers in rather more detail in a moment and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take the opportunity to intervene again; indeed I may pose him one or two questions during my remarks.
	Backing the border force are the immigration police, equipped with greater resources but also prioritising the removal of those most harmful. We are beginning to see the results. About 180,000 people whom we believe have no right to come to Britain have been taken off planes from around the world over the last five years; that is about two jumbo jets a week. The tests of our border screening systems have already triggered alerts, resulting in 1,200 arrests. In 2006, we removed nearly 3,000 foreign national prisoners, the highest figure on record. In 2006, we removed more than 16,000 failed asylum seekers, more than the number of unfounded claims made—that is about one every half an hour, 24 hours a day. We are now resolving asylum cases faster than ever before; about 40 per cent. of asylum cases are now resolved in just six months, compared with the extraordinary spectacle of two years just to make an initial decision back in 1997.

Liam Byrne: I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that remark. He has consistently raised the matter with me, and he will know that it was the subject of a court case in another place yesterday. The judgment was that in certain circumstances it might well be safe to return people to parts of Sudan. However, that is no substitute for giving careful and individual attention to the specifics of any case, and we will continue to operate that policy. I hope that we might debate this matter again.

Liam Byrne: As the hon. Gentleman knows, I welcomed Julie Spence's comments. She helpfully said that migrants had been the powerhouse behind some of the economy in Cambridgeshire such as agriculture and some other services. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing will have more to say on that when settlements for the police are announced later this year.
	I wish to contrast this Government's policy with the Conservative party's absence of policy in some regards. Its policy is benighted by two simple problems: there are no figures and there is no force. Let me start with the figures. In January 2005, the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) said that he would limit the number of refugees coming to Britain. In December 2005, the hon. Member for Ashford said, which I welcomed:
	"We will be looking at that again".
	Needless to say, that policy disappeared from sight. The idea for an overall cap then emerged. The details were not very clear, but the hon. Gentleman was quoted in  The Observer on 12 August this year as saying that the proposed cap would apply only to
	"economic migrants from outside the EU".
	The right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) repeated that on 29 October. That can only mean one thing: it will apply only to migrants from outside the EU coming to the UK primarily for work-related purposes.
	In the absence of specifics from the hon. Gentleman, I asked the Office for National Statistics to tell me exactly what this would mean. Based on the international passenger survey for 2005, the ONS estimates that only approximately 23 per cent. of foreign nationals who came to the UK in 2005 for a year or more indicated that they were non-EU citizens and that the main reason for their stay was work-related. In other words, of the 496,000 who entered in 2005, 403,000 were either EU citizens or were non-EU citizens not coming for work-related reasons. They are presumably outside the cap. On that basis, it appears that the cap would not cover four out of five such people. The question of who is left is therefore a matter for debate. We can tell a little about them from the work permits that we issue. The following figures are for the year up to September 2006: 31,000 in IT, 20,000 in health, 17,000 in business and management and 13,000 in financial services.
	The hon. Gentleman must answer this question: who will he stop coming to Britain? Is not the truth that his refusal to name a figure is a fig leaf for the fact that there is almost no difference between us? Is there not in fact a consensus between us that he is trying to deny?

Damian Green: I understand why the Minister is desperate to pretend that he is adopting a Tory policy as that is very fashionable in his Government. He has just been quoting figures from 2005. Is he therefore telling the House that, contrary to his assertion to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) that he will not make estimates, he is assuming that the level of immigration to this country from inside the EU in 2005 will be the permanent level of immigration from inside the EU? If the Minister is assuming that, I suggest he is wrong; it is extremely unlikely that the enormous influx that we experienced from Poland and the other accession—A8—countries in 2005 will be the normal level of immigration from inside the EU. I assure him that under a Conservative Government, who would insist on transitional arrangements for all new EU member states, it would not be that high.

Liam Byrne: We have put in place transitional arrangements on Bulgaria and Romania, and I think that the hon. Gentleman supports that policy. The right hon. Member for Witney clearly said on 29 October that
	"what matters is the net figure".
	Today's figures show that the net balance is down again; it is 191,000. The right hon. Gentleman said it would be much higher. This is the second year in a row in which it has declined. My point is simple: what is the hon. Gentleman trying to hide by refusing to name a figure?
	There is a second, and equally important, point. In addition to the absence of a figure, there is an absence of force. It is crucial for migration control in the future that we have biometric identification of foreign nationals coming to this country, so that we can screen them before they come and make it possible to check them when they are here. I thought we agreed on that. The hon. Gentleman said in the Committee on the UK Borders Bill that
	"there is no difference on either side of the Committee in our recognition of the need to combat illegal working. If the new documents"—
	ID cards for foreign nationals—
	"are to prove useful in doing so we have no objection to them." ——[Official Report, UK Borders Public Bill Committee, 8 March 2007; c. 238.]
	Imagine my surprise when I read in the fine print of a press release from a colleague of the hon. Gentleman that the start-up costs of the ID card system for foreign nationals would be among the cuts the Tories would make. At this year's Conservative party conference, the Tories said they would cut the set-up costs of ID cards for foreign nationals—some £40 million in 2008-10. I shall give way to the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) in the hope that he might be able to help me understand this.

Liam Byrne: The hon. Gentleman will recognise the need to distinguish between those coming here for work, those coming to study and dependants. According to what the ONS said this morning, a quarter of the inflow is students; I assume that they are outside the cap, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman can enlighten us. I do not think that the Conservatives are proposing reintroducing the primary purpose rule, but I should be interested to know whether dependants will be inside or outside the cap.

Liam Byrne: In the interests of time, I shall move on; I have only one minute left.
	I want to strike a final note of consensus and to do something unusual for a Minister—I want to congratulate the Conservatives on some of their principles. It was welcome that they insisted that their candidate for Halesowen and Rowley Regis step down. It was wrong for him to say that Enoch Powell was "right", and the House will know, as I discovered by reading  The Birmingham Post last week, that much of that speech was completely unacceptable. Comparing our immigration policy with
	"a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre"
	is something that we need to remove from British politics. I hope that the hon. Member for Ashford will join me not only in applauding the Conservative candidate's resignation, but in condemning his remarks. Will he join me in rejecting the arguments of Enoch Powell and in sending a clear message to this House and beyond that the days of the politics of—

Damian Green: I, too, am delighted by the innovation of the topical debate, and I am further delighted that in the first such debate we have the opportunity to discuss this week's scandal surrounding the Home Office and immigration. My only fear is that if this becomes the slot in which we discuss the Government's worst mistake of the week the Minister for Borders and Immigration and I might get more than our fair share of opportunities.

Damian Green: My hon. Friend is exactly right. The Bicester scandal would doubtless have made a good topical debate in the week when it happened—all of about three weeks ago. However, we have of course moved on to new Home Office fiascos, for which I am sure no one will ever apologise.
	I do not want to spend all my time on the events surrounding the cover-up of the Security Industry Authority. However, I am slightly surprised that the Minister did not devote one second of his speech to the topical issue of the day relating to immigration, preferring instead to delve—in a very welcome way—into Conservative policy, which he would of course like to adopt, in the mode of this Government. One or two aspects of this week's scandal have emerged since Tuesday that the House should be made aware of. As the Minister knows, there are two big questions: did the Home Secretary behave competently, and was she open and honest with this House and the public?
	Let me take the second question first by quoting what the Home Secretary told the House on Tuesday:
	"My approach was that the responsible thing to do was to establish the full nature and scale of the problem and to take appropriate action to deal with it, rather than immediately to put incomplete and potentially misleading information into the public domain."
	In other words, she was only waiting until she had the full facts before publishing them. I do not think that that is an unfair characterisation of what she told us; she said that, when she could tell us the facts, she would.
	What are we to make, therefore, of one detail of the documents published on Tuesday that has been neglected? In paragraph 22 of a document dated 30 August and written by Mr. Peter Edmondson of the policing policy and operations directorate, he says:
	"Press Office do not recommend any sort of public announcement on this, as the full extent of the number of illegal workers with SIA licences is not yet known and there has been no failure in the system. Instead they propose to use reactive lines should this issue ever come to light."
	That is not the response of a department waiting to collect information before publishing it;
	"should this issue ever come to light"
	is a phrase used by a department that was hoping that it could keep the whole situation out of the public domain permanently. I do not want to stray over the boundaries of permissible parliamentary language, but the memo reveals that the Home Secretary was not being fully candid with the House when she said on Tuesday that she did not want
	"immediately to put incomplete and potentially misleading information into the public domain."—[ Official Report, 13 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 532.]
	She hoped that she would never have to put anything in the public domain, and she has been caught out.

Ann Cryer: The hon. Gentleman is talking about keeping down numbers. In the exchanges during the opening remarks of my hon. Friend the Minister for Borders and Immigration, mention was made of the primary-purpose rule. Does the hon. Gentleman intend to reintroduce it as and when the Conservatives are eventually re-elected?

Damian Green: I agree. One of the things that I suspect would unite the Minister and me is the idea that if mainstream politicians do not talk about immigration, we leave the field clear to extremist politicians. We must not do that. I am delighted that this House is having this debate now, because many of the underlying tensions that extremist parties seek to whip up are about the rate of change being too high. It is too high and it is accelerating. The Government have recently had to increase their long-term projection of net annual immigration from 145,000 a year to 190,000 a year. Today, we received figures confirming that. More than two thirds of the total increase in our population is due to immigration. Net immigration means that we need to build more than 70,000 new houses every year in addition to those that we need for other reasons, such as longer life expectancy and an increasing number of family breakdowns.
	Immigration is about more than economics, although we must be clear about the economic effects. As I said a few minutes ago, they are generally positive, but the impact is different for different groups of people.

Keith Vaz: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am delighted to be taking part in your experiment this afternoon.
	It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green). I think that he spent nine minutes on Government policy and about 30 seconds on setting out Conservative party policy. It did not include the identity of the island that will be the offshore centre for the processing of immigration cases under a Conservative Government. Perhaps we should wait for the winding-up speeches for that.
	We all lavish the Minister with praise and think that he is a wonderful man. I believe that he was described as a good Minister in a bad Government. I think that he is a nice man in a tough job. He is not all that nice, though: I have found him to be pretty tough in dealing with immigration cases, and certainly with the ones I have brought to him for consideration. I sometimes think that he considers the word "discretion" to be some kind of perfume by Chanel rather than a ministerial power. He certainly has not exercised it very often when I have come to him with cases that I believe to be important, but I suppose that that is the nature of his job.
	The Conservative spokesman, the hon. Member for Ashford, was right to point out the problems that the Government have had, and everyone acknowledges that there are problems with certain aspects of immigration policy. This week, the Home Secretary gave us a full explanation about the Security Industry Authority, in which she set out the steps that she and Ministers have quite properly taken to ensure that the problem will be resolved by Christmas. The hon. Gentleman said that some questions remain unanswered, but that is wrong. The relevant questions have been answered, and any that remain must be answered only after all the facts have been considered in full.
	I am pleased that the Minister is to give evidence to the Home Affairs Committee on 27 November. As well as considering Romania and Bulgaria, we shall pursue with him the question of how the Government have handled the SIA's employment of illegal immigrants. We shall also consider the problem with the figures—to be fair, they were produced by the Department for Work and Pensions and not the Home Office—that recounted that about 300,000 people were not on the official register of those who had come to this country to work.
	We will also consider the most recent developments on eastern European migration to this country. The Conservative party participated in the all-party support for the enlargement process over a number of years, and it also claims to have supported the Nice treaty. How sad, therefore, that it should be so critical of the large number of eastern Europeans who have quite rightly taken advantage of treaty obligations to come to this country.
	I ask the hon. Member for Ashford to have a word with the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands) about the wonderful relationship that he has developed with his eastern European community in west London. A recent Home Office report showed that the contribution of migration, especially from the A8 countries, had boosted the British economy. That is why I am glad that we took the decisions that we did in 2004, as those people are most welcome in this country. I am disappointed, of course, about Romania and Bulgaria, but on 27 November we will hear from the Minister why he came to those conclusions. We will also hear from the Romanian Minister for Europe about that country's views on the subject.
	The figures are serious and need to be examined, but we must consider immigration in a balanced and non-hysterical way. I am sorry that, every time the matter comes up, the Opposition try to hype it up as though vast numbers of people are coming into the country. As the hon. Member for Ashford knows, Government immigration rules still make it very difficult for people to come into the UK.
	I commend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), on her proper and balanced performance on a recent "Newsnight" programme on immigration. She set out the facts and the Government's attempts to tackle illegal immigration very clearly.
	If we both get the train, I shall meet the Minister for Borders and Immigration this afternoon—not in Jerusalem, but in Birmingham, where staff from the British high commission in India are going to talk about illegal immigration into the UK. They will seek the support of the stakeholders involved—community groups and leaders, and families—and their message will be that there is a better alternative to paying vast amounts of money to people traffickers in Amritsar. The people who do that are made to travel all the way through Asia and Europe before they enter this country, where they live in the shadows, unable to be proper members of society. I hope that that message is taken on board.
	The Minister is right that there have been improvements over the past year. The Select Committee will examine those improvements in due course but, as my hon. Friend knows, I feel strongly that the Home Office is not doing enough to get the backlog down. It is wrong that it takes three weeks to get a reply from the director-general of the immigration service. It is now called the Border and Immigration Agency, but merely changing to a new name does not improve the efficiency of the service on offer to Members of Parliament.
	In addition, it still takes too long to get a reply from my hon. Friend the Minister, who took four months to reply to a letter from me. That is wrong: he is right to be tough, but the process can be improved only if Members of Parliament are provided with information that they can readily give to their constituents so that they are satisfied. If people who wish to stay in the country are told that they cannot do so, that response should be given quickly, at the very least. In that way, the people involved will be able to make the decisions that will genuinely affect their lives.
	I turn now to the issue of foreign prisoners in our prisons, something that I have written to the Minister about. In one case, the prisoner involved left the country within a couple of hours of being released from prison, but we need to improve the system, so that prisoners who finish their sentences are on the plane back to their country of origin as quickly as possible. I do not want the House to believe that I spend all my time visiting prisons, but one governor, whose prison has a lot of foreign prisoners, gave me anecdotal evidence that paperwork from Lunar house and Apollo house was needed before people at the end of their sentence could be allowed to leave the country.
	That shows that there is a problem when it comes to administrative efficiency. I am sure that the Minister goes into his office on a Monday morning and tears his hair out—I mean that imaginatively!—when he sees the list of questions and letters from Southall, West Ham and other places all over the country. In their surgeries, MPs are always asked, "Why is it taking so long?" and "When will they give us the time limit?" I am sure that my hon. Friend hears the same questions in his surgeries, but we are talking about being fit for purpose, and ensuring that the people who respond to such correspondence get the answers right.
	Finally, I know that the Minister puts a great deal of faith in the points-based system, which he inherited rather than created. Although I do not share his optimism about the success of the scheme, I shall give him a degree of latitude and take it on faith when he says that it will work, but it will affect people who come here from outside the EU. As he knows from the recent work done by the EU presidency, the EU has a falling population. We need to look abroad, beyond the boundaries of Europe, if we are to sustain ourselves as the finest and largest single economic market in the world. That was the aim of the Lisbon agenda, but we cannot do that unless we have the people. Even enlargement, with Turkey coming in, will not solve that problem.
	The points-based system discriminates against those who want to come from outside the EU. It means that we will still have problems with shortages of skills in restaurants, for example, and with getting chefs into this country. Those are the sort of specialist problems that I hope that the Minister will address. I know that he has his migration impact forum and a lot of advisers, and that he deals with the subject properly and seriously because of his constituency interest. All I ask him to do is to consider the evidence. If the system needs a bit of tweaking by the start of next year, I hope that he will look favourably on our suggestions and see whether we can improve it even further.

Jeremy Browne: The usual assumption of the Conservative party is that the other countries in the European Union are all wrong. I give credit to the Government. The British Government were enlightened and intelligent in terms of self-interest but also of generosity of spirit to the 10 new accession countries in allowing those people to come and work here. The situation in Germany was slightly different because it shares a large land border with Poland so the effect might have been even more pronounced. We have benefited hugely and we have demonstrated to those countries, their Governments and their people that Britain is a trusted ally within the EU. Immigration is helpful to us in our foreign policy and our domestic economy. It is no coincidence that we are in a better position to grow and expand our economy than many of the more sclerotic economies that the hon. Gentleman holds up as an example.
	There are problems with large numbers of people coming into the country. There is pressure on housing and other services—schools were mentioned. If large numbers come into the education system who do not speak English as a first language, that is problematic. However, overall we have a reasonably dynamic economy in Britain. It has shown continuous growth for the past 15 years, and successful economies attract labour. People want to come here, work here, provide for themselves and their families and create new opportunities for themselves. That creates a better, more open, more dynamic economy and society for us in this country. We should celebrate the contribution that has been made by people from outside the United Kingdom while recognising the pressures on some public services. We must have an enlightened and liberal approach to immigration in this country.

Neil Gerrard: I listened to the speech by the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green). Apparently we now have a balanced immigration policy from the Conservative party. The policy starts from the assumption that there are too many people coming here and that we have to control the numbers without giving any idea how or what sort of cap would work. It makes only nodding reference to the economic benefits of migration. That does not strike me as a balanced policy. Conservative Members try to give the impression that if there was a Tory Government everything would be fine and we would be in control of what was happening.
	I recognise that after 10 years in Government, we have to be responsible for what has happened in those 10 years, but those of us who have been here for rather longer than 10 years remember what it was like dealing with immigration and asylum cases under a Tory Government. We remember the chaos in the Home Office and the huge and growing backlogs during the 1990s. We remember the unofficial amnesties that happened without anyone outside the Home Office ever being told. The failure to remove people was endemic. The Tory Government stopped recording people who left the country in the 1990s. Then the all-singing, all-dancing computer system was commissioned. Home Office staff were let go on the back of that and of course it never worked. So please do not tell me that the Tory party would run an immigration system that worked. We can look back to the record of the early 1990s and remember what happened then. Those of us who were here then remember that very well.
	I want to say something about numbers because they are an issue. Sometimes in debates about the numbers, people try to give the impression that we have no idea how many people are coming in, but we have a great deal of data and they are accurate. We know how many people apply for visas to come here as spouses; we know how many people apply for all sorts of visas to come into the country. We know how many people come here on the highly skilled migrant programme. The holes in the data are clearly on movements from within the EU. For people coming from one of the A8 countries who wish to seek employment, there is a registration scheme, but there is nothing to stop someone from coming here and becoming self-employed, and a lot of people do.
	We have got problems. There is a genuine problem, and it does not help to address it if all that people do is shout that there are too many, in getting to grips with the numbers. We have census data, which we know are out of date. We have national insurance numbers. We have labour force surveys and the international passenger survey sampling. We also have data from registration with GPs and we can get data from schools. There are real difficulties in getting accurate data not so much at the national level but at the local level. The e-borders programme will get us to the point where we have much more accurate data at national level, but no one has come up with any real suggestions about obtaining accurate local data. It would help if we could have some genuine discussions about how we might get a better grip on the data at local level. It is local communities who see the impact and the data affect the distribution of resources to local authorities. The issue is difficult and complicated. There is no simple answer to it, and it is certainly not an answer just to shout slogans about the Home Office not having detailed and accurate figures.

Neil Gerrard: That is an important point, to which I shall return in more detail.
	There is an issue that we need to think about. There is not one simple answer and just shouting slogans does not help to address the problem at all. It is not even just people who are new immigrants into the country who are affected. Any hon. Member representing a London constituency will know about the mobility that exists. One has only to look at an electoral register and see a year-on-year change of perhaps 20 per cent. to appreciate that mobility and realise the difficulties that it creates in providing local services. We need to talk about the numbers, but we need to do so sensibly and not just talk about simplistic stuff such as imposing a cap, because that is not an answer to anything.
	On controls, it is only in the past six or seven years that we have had a sensible debate about what immigration policy ought to be. From about 1971 to 2001, we had lots of debates about mechanisms and controls, but we did not talk about what the policy would be. It was only when the then Minister with responsibility for immigration, Barbara Roche, initiated a debate around 2000 that we started to make the linkages between labour market needs, the economy and what sort of migration we need. The Government's current approach, in moving away from the plethora of different routes into the country and introducing a points-based system, is sensible.
	I have some issues about the points-based system and how exactly it will work. The first is that it seems that we are to have a points-based system that will shut out unskilled labour from outside the EU. That will be a problem. The second problem is that those who can enter through the lower tiers that relate to unskilled work will have little in the way of rights, such as those relating to family reunion and the ability to reach the point at which they can apply to stay in the UK permanently. Those issues could cause us difficulties in the future.
	There are issues about the transition on the highly skilled migrants programme, too, as the Minister knows. That links to the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) raised about those who are already here, but who are often undocumented and working illegally. They will have come through all sorts of routes. Sometimes people have an image of an illegal worker as someone who arrived in the back of a lorry and then stayed to work, but we are talking about people who have come through all sorts of different routes.
	Some of those people are failed asylum seekers who were given permission to work years ago and technically lost it when their asylum claim was refused, yet nothing has ever been done about it. Others include people who came here as visitors or students and overstayed, or people who came here years ago from countries such as Jamaica when visas were not required. A large number of those people work, have a national insurance number and in many cases, but not all—there are of course people working in the moonlight economy—pay tax. They have families and children, but they do not have a settled immigration status. If we are to start cracking down more on employers who employ people illegally, as is intended, more people in that situation will turn up. They have no security and no method of enforcing rights at work, because if they attempt to do so, an employer who knows that they do not have legal permission to work will not be easily swayed.
	My hon. Friend mentioned the strangers into citizens campaign. We must seriously think about how we deal with those people. The reality is that we are not going to remove them all. In many cases they are people who have been here a long time. I would argue, as I know a number of my hon. Friends would, that we need seriously to consider a regularisation scheme—that is, a mechanism to allow people to earn the right to stay here. If we are to introduce a transparent points-based system that is seen to work fairly, we shall sooner or later have to deal with the problem, because otherwise it will always be there in the background.
	We have done things like that before. When the Tories were in government they ran amnesties that were not publicised. We, too, have run concessions and amnesties of one sort or another. Other countries have run regularisation schemes. That is something that we must start to address. A regularisation scheme would allow people who are effectively settled here to enjoy the benefits from the tax and national insurance that in many cases they have paid. Regularisation would also make it easier both to go for the rogue employer and to give protection and rights to the whole work force, because if people with this doubtful status are working in an industry, everybody is affected. That is something that we should address, as we introduce the new points system.

Julian Brazier: I shall pick up one or two of the remarks that the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) made at the end of my speech. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) is right to point to the shocking revelations from earlier this week and to the wider problem of the breakdown of border controls, which is what most concerns us all. When the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), of whom I am extremely fond, teased my hon. Friend about the fantasy island yet again, one had the feeling that he might have been planning a Select Committee visit.

Julian Brazier: The Minister is a good man in a bad Government, and he knows perfectly well that we have almost unprecedentedly high levels of emigration. The point is that, on the Government's own target, the level of work permits exceeds the current net immigration level. Net immigration is only one third of immigration.
	Previous Governments—Conservative and Labour—only accepted between 35,000 and 40,000 people a year from outside the EU, but the checks and balances that existed in the work permit system under all those Governments have now largely disappeared. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has pointed out, one indication of that is that well over 90 per cent. of extensions are granted—often, one suspects, with very little checking.
	It is bizarre, when we are facing so many population-driven pressures, that we should have a demographic problem on this scale that it is effectively within the Government's power easily to alter. I want to look at two further points that will help us to explore the issue a bit more deeply. An interesting study written by Anthony Schofield, published by the Social Affairs Unit, looks at the sheer economics of immigration from two angles. First, it looks at the cost of infrastructure and the net impact of immigration on the net wealth of the nation, and concludes that the vast majority of immigrants who bring no capital with them would have to earn extremely high incomes to be net generators of wealth.
	The study's second conclusion brings me back to the comments of the hon. Member for Walthamstow on the position of the less skilled immigrants in the work force. Surely one does not have to take a particular view—left or right wing—of economics to understand that if we greatly increase the supply of something, its price goes down. The truth is that the impact of heavy levels of net immigration, particularly of young males, into the work force is depressing the wages of the least well off people—the poorer and least advantaged people—who are already here, including many from ethnic minorities.

Julian Brazier: I am glad that we have now discovered that there was a point to the hon. Gentleman's speech. If he wants to see the best and most detailed mathematical calculation that I have ever seen, he should look at the study to which I have just referred; I will gladly show him afterwards. The answer to his question is that it would be very much less than the cost on the net wealth side. The loss of wealth accounts for far more than the economic gain to which he has just referred. He can check those calculations if he likes. I have a simple question: who is going to bother to employ and retrain a Brit—of whatever ethnic background—in his 50s and who has perhaps been made redundant twice, if he can get a young, fit 19-year-old to do the job instead?
	There is nothing inconsistent in taking a compassionate view, as described by the hon. Member for Walthamstow, of individual cases of people who have been here for a very long time, and who came in before the current people. I have one such case before the Minister at the moment. He earlier assisted me in getting a very nasty criminal deported from my constituency, and I hope that he will now be able to help me in the case of Hartley Alleyne, a first-class cricketer who has played for the West Indies, for Worcestershire and, above all, for Kent county cricket club. He has given 30 years to this country, but is now facing deportation. The Minister is reviewing his case, and I am most grateful to him for doing that. There is no inconsistency whatever in taking a sensible view of people who have been here for a long time while restricting the numbers of work permits.
	It is grossly unfair that the county of Kent, and one or two other boroughs, are picking up such a disproportionate part of the bill. The last time I looked, we were owed £6 million, the equivalent of 1 per cent. on the council tax. I know that there are other bodies involved too.

David Davies: I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate. I am also grateful to the Labour Members who, while being rather critical of what the Conservatives have to say on these matters, have not resorted to the usual tactic of denouncing anyone who queries immigration as being some sort of racist. We have had a sensible debate—[Hon. Members: "So far."] Indeed. It is important that we have a debate, because the failure to discuss immigration over the past 10 years has been a direct factor in the increased support for extremist parties such as the British National party. Mainstream politicians on all sides should not be afraid to engage in this debate.
	People have become concerned about immigration for several reasons, the first of which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) said, is the sheer numbers involved: 10 million or so over the next few years alone. The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) talked about amnesties for those who are already here and who have decided to overstay illegally. Would not that simply lead to an even greater number of people coming here, many of whom might risk their lives paying people smugglers to do so? Amnesties would send entirely the wrong message and encourage even greater numbers to come here.
	Anyone who knows anything about British history—sadly, fewer and fewer people do these days, thanks to the curriculum, which we will discuss another time—will know that, whenever there has been large-scale immigration in this country, it has always been quite disastrous. The best examples of immigration have, on the whole, been small in scale, involving manageable numbers of people coming from one country or one ethnic background. Most importantly, they have involved people who have wanted to integrate. The Ugandan Asians and the Jews who came over here in the last century are good examples of people who have come here wanting to integrate and to adopt the cultures of this country.
	The sad fact is that many immigrants do not want to integrate whatsoever. Worse still, they demand that our laws be changed to accommodate their cultural beliefs. We have a right to say that that is unacceptable. It is unacceptable that we have legitimised polygamous marriage in the UK. It is unacceptable that we hand a schoolgirl hundreds of thousands of pounds to fight a case to allow her to wear the hijab in contravention of school policy. It is unacceptable that Government organisations send cards celebrating Eid, Diwali and other religious festivals, about which I am quite happy, but will not send Christmas cards in case it gives offence. There are many examples of our laws, culture and traditions being overturned to accommodate people who have no intention of trying to integrate.
	Members have spoken about the impact of immigration on the economy. On various occasions it has been stated that the effect of immigration on the economy has been universally good. That is an impossible statement to make unless we are prepared to look at the costs of immigration to the economy as well as the benefits. It is undoubtedly true that there are benefits. As the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne) pointed out, as a result of immigration it is much cheaper to get a plumber or an electrician in some areas. He asked how much more it would cost to get our pipes fixed if we had not allowed immigration from the EU. The answer is that it depends on how much more a British plumber would have charged and how much higher his wages would have been.
	There is no doubt that the wages of many skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled people living in the UK would be substantially higher now if large-scale immigration had not taken place. There is no need to take my word for that; the CBI joyfully produced that analysis in a report that a Select Committee considered recently.
	There have been other effects on the economy; we have heard about the impact of large-scale immigration on education. There has also been an impact on the national health service. Although many immigrants work in the NHS, many more are taking from the health service and costing us large sums of money because they are not entitled to NHS treatment. The Government have chosen to ignore that and are doing nothing about it. In all their targets, and in all the paperwork and forms they expect NHS trusts to fill in about patients, the one thing they constantly choose to ignore is the number of people who are incorrectly accessing NHS services at great cost.

David Davies: Many people who have come to the UK to work—primarily in the NHS, not so much in education—have been highly motivated, skilled and educated, but in many instances that has caused problems in the countries they left. They have taken their skills away from countries that desperately needed them. We need to be specific. For example, the immigration of Filipino nurses, many of whom work in my constituency, has been positive because there are more nurses in the Philippines than there are jobs for them. However, by allowing nurses from some African countries to come to the UK we have caused enormous problems in countries where they were desperately needed. It is a case of swings and roundabouts and it is difficult to generalise about immigrants in a wide sense; we have to consider the countries from which they come and the problems that may be caused by accepting them.
	Earlier this week, issues were raised about the Security Industry Authority's licensing illegal immigrants to work in the security industry. I find it difficult to believe that the Government did not find out about that until April 2007, given that I had tabled questions in September 2006, following a meeting I attended the previous June with a local representative of one of the security trade associations in Abergavenny who was trying to tell anyone who would listen that the practice was going on. It is difficult to believe that a Back-Bench Member of Parliament could have known about it almost a year before the Home Secretary, and that following questions tabled in September the then Home Secretary was still unable to work it out for himself.
	I have tried to draw Ministers' attention to a number of other scandals at the Home Office that are yet to come out. I shall put them on the record now. Large numbers of people are taking driving tests in languages other than English and obtaining a full British driver's licence as a result. About 100,000 people took their theory test in a foreign language last year and 15,000 took the practical test with an interpreter in the back of the car translating the examiner's instructions. It is unacceptable that people can come to the UK without speaking a word of English and gain a British driving licence. That will lead to road accidents, and no number of local authorities translating road signs into Polish will solve the problem.
	As I indicated earlier, there is an enormous problem in the NHS. People are accessing care when they have no right to it, which costs British taxpayers a vast amount and makes it harder for UK residents who have paid their taxes to have the health care to which they are entitled. The Government should do something about that.
	Finally, there is, rightly, a licensing regime, similar to the SIA one for security guards, for people who want to become teachers. I have been told that a number of people are applying to become teachers from countries where it is almost impossible to check their academic or criminal records, yet they are still granted a licence and can seek work as teachers. I have already drawn that to the attention of Welsh Assembly Ministers. Westminster Ministers may know about it and I suggest that they investigate it before it becomes another subject for a tabloid headline.
	Almost every speaker in the debate has described the Minister as a good man in a bad Government. I agree, but he will have to do much more if he is to tackle the problems caused by his predecessors. There is too much immigration; too many people are coming to this country and not enough of them are prepared to learn English and adapt to our culture and our traditions, which is causing much genuine concern.

Kevan Jones: I would have said that it was a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies), but the xenophobic rant we have just heard shows what is wrong with the modern Conservative party. The right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) asked for a grown-up debate on immigration. I agree entirely, but I do not think we heard it in the contribution of the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies).
	I am fond of the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), and usually agree with him on quite a few issues, so I thought we were doing well when he talked about the benefits of immigration in terms of the supermarket dynasties founded as a result of Jewish immigration. However, he then fell into the numbers trap, as the Conservatives always do, although their Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), admitted that broadly speaking immigration is a good thing economically. We should be saying that.
	I would not mind debating with the Conservatives things such as our skills shortages, the demographics to which the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne) referred and the benefits of immigration to the UK economy, rather than numbers. We need to separate the issues. We need to discuss immigration from the EU separately. Who do we have to thank for open borders in Europe? We should remind people that Baroness Thatcher signed us into the Single European Act and opened up the free transfer of people across Europe, which is not a bad thing. I agree with the hon. Member for Taunton; it has been positive for most of our constituencies.
	The next issue relates to what the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) described in a recent speech as the rest of the world. I agree completely with the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow)—a rare beast in the Conservative party—that our borders should be open to people fleeing violence and persecution. We have a long tradition in that regard and we should be proud of it. However, it is right that we take a tough stand against people who come to the UK illegally and bend the rules.
	As was said earlier, without the benefits of immigration our health service and our transport system in London and elsewhere would be much poorer. We need to get away from the idea that all immigration is bad.
	Durham university in the north-east of England is a first-rate and world-class institution that benefits tremendously from huge numbers of foreign students. They do two things. First, they bring money to the city of Durham and the university. Secondly, as I know from having met many of them in various parts of the world, when they leave they act as ambassadors not only for the great county and city of Durham but for the UK. That is important.
	I welcome the proposal to hold a grown-up debate from the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), but let us have that grown-up debate; let us not get into the xenophobic nonsense that we have just heard from the hon. Member for Monmouth. Let us talk about the net immigration that we need over the next few years, to which the hon. Member for Taunton referred, not just in this country but across Europe.
	We also need to pride ourselves on the economic impact that those people, including Margaret Thatcher, who signed the Single European Act wanted to achieve. The economies of eastern European countries—certainly Poland and others—are growing because money is being transferred back to them. I do not usually agree with the hon. Member for Taunton, but he is right: we cannot say that they should be free from the yoke of the Soviet Union but leave them in abject poverty, without ensuring that they get the benefits that the rest of us have in the EU. That is the way to stability across not just Europe but the world.
	Finally, I should like to point out that the Conservatives also need to be clear that, when they talk about limiting and taking a tough stance on immigration, they ought to start to vote for that when such measures come before the House. I am thinking of their failure to support the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 and their continued opposition to identity cards. The public need to know about such things.

Meg Hillier: Owing to the time allowed, I am afraid that I will not take interventions; I need to respond to a number of points. I want to thank hon. Members for their contributions to what has been a measured and sensible debate in most parts.
	I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), who made, as ever, some sensible and measured points. I should like to reassure him that, as I am now the champion for the Home Office on Members' correspondence and the second-largest customer of the Home Office on this issue, I am taking it up with vigour, and he will see continued improvements. I should also like to reassure him that, last year, the Border and Immigration Agency removed 2,784 foreign national prisoners, and it doubled removals in the first quarter of this year, compared with the number of removals in the first quarter of 2006.
	The hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne) was very interesting, as ever, and if I had any sway in his party, I would recommend him for promotion, given that he stands in so regularly for the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg).
	My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) was a pleasure to listen to, as always, and I benefited, as did the House, from his wisdom, experience and thoughtfulness. He rightly raised issues about local data. That is one of the reasons why we have set up the migration impact forum, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Minister for Borders and Immigration, along with the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda). Other hon. Members have said that we do not meet the representatives of local authorities, but the forum does, and we are keen to hear from local authorities, because we believe that often we hear first from them about some of the issues that affect local communities.
	In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East, I would say that we will produce the statements of intent on the points-based system before they come into effect. We are very keen to hear hon. Members' views on that, and we can benefit from their experience.
	Time is short, so I want to say that I feel rather let down by Opposition Members. Although I have great respect for the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) personally, he has resolutely refused to answer questions about the Conservative party's cap proposal. The Conservatives have resolutely refused to square their approach to immigration with the UK's membership of the European Union. The fact that the Conservative party did not vote against the free movement directive when it was introduced in 2006 demonstrates that they say one thing and act differently.
	On the Security Industry Authority, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made a statement to the House on Tuesday and gave a commitment to come back to the House in December. That is all that I can say on that in the time that I have available.
	The hon. Member for Ashford also referred to British jobs—
	 It being one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings , the motion lapsed , without Question put.

Nick Harvey: I beg to move,
	That Mr John MacDonald Lyon CB be appointed Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards on the terms of the Report of the House of Commons Commission, HC 1096, dated 24th October.
	Hon. Members might recall that, on 28 June, Mr. Speaker informed the House that the current Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Sir Philip Mawer, had indicated his desire to step down from the post at the end of this year, after almost six years in the post. This debate provides the opportunity to thank Sir Philip for all that he has done in that time; but before I do so, I shall briefly report on the process that has led the Commission to recommend that John Lyon should become the fourth person to hold that office.
	The process followed very much the same path as the one that led to the appointment of Sir Philip in 2002. There was an open and competitive selection. We were very pleased that 46 candidates of notably good calibre were considered. Five of them were interviewed by the selection board, and the final two came for interview by the Commission. They were two excellent candidates, and the recommendation to the House was a very tough call.
	I am grateful to the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) for taking part in the selection board, as the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee, to the two senior House officials who sat on the board and to Sheila Drew Smith from the panel of the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments—an independent member of the selection board.
	John Lyon is a senior official in the Ministry of Justice. He is currently responsible for handling relations between the Executive and the judiciary, which, one presumes, is no bed of roses. He impressed the Commission with his long experience of dealing with Ministers from both parties, dating back to the late Merlyn Rees in the mid-1970s. He also showed a good understanding of the importance of the job to the House's reputation and the need to strike the right balance between prevention and investigation.
	If the House agrees the motion today, John Lyon will serve a single term of five years, starting in January 2008. Members will recall that, in June 2003, following the recommendation in the eighth report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the House resolved that the commissioner should serve a non-renewable term of five years, to avoid any suggestion that an incumbent might tailor their judgments on account of a desire to have the term renewed.
	The Commission attaches great importance to ensuring that the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has sufficient resources to carry out his duties properly. The cost of running that office in 2006-07 was £386,500, almost all of which was staff costs. If the new commissioner finds that he needs extra assistance, he will get a very sympathetic hearing from the House of Commons Commission.
	I would not want to steal the thunder—nay, more likely the warm sunshine—of the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee, but on behalf of the Commission I should like to record our appreciation of the way in which Sir Philip Mawer carried out his task. As a member of that Committee, I have seen that at first hand over the past couple of years. Sir Philip has shown a high degree of integrity, diligence and impartiality in carrying out complicated and sensitive inquiries. In a typical piece of understatement, his final annual report concludes with the words
	"it has been a privilege to have wrestled with [these] challenges".
	We wish him well in his next appointment as the Prime Minister's independent adviser on ministerial interests.

George Young: It gives me great pleasure to support the motion, moved by the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey), to appoint John Lyon as the House's new Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. I welcome what the hon. Gentleman has just said about resources from the House. As he explained, as the Chairman of the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges, I played a part the selection process, and I can confirm its rigour and integrity.
	The current commissioner, Sir Philip Mawer, will be a hard act to follow, and he was the benchmark against which I judged the applicants. John Lyon has a similar pedigree. He has a distinguished record as a career civil servant and a good insight into the ways of the House and its Members, both through his private office experience in the Home Office and his involvement with our legislative programme. He has demonstrated his ability to deal effectively with sensitive matters and to balance conflicting interests, not least in some of his work in Northern Ireland. He has shown his ability to act discreetly and fairly and I am sure that he will prove to be a worthy successor to Sir Philip. Both the Committee and I look forward to working with him.
	What are the skills that John Lyon will need? It is self-evident that an ability to act fairly is essential. The commissioner must also be able to prioritise, and to identify and concentrate on, the key issues. He must be resolute in the face of obfuscation, as successive commissioners have demonstrated. Given the extent of the commissioner's direct personal involvement in investigating complaints, he needs the ability to run investigations, and to draft complex reports succinctly.
	Besides ensuring that the system runs successfully, the commissioner needs to keep the wider picture under review. The standards system is a dynamic one, and the commissioner plays a leading part in ensuring that it continues to meet expectations, both inside and outside the House. He also has to seek to ensure that the system's achievements are better known. The commissioner's annual reports—referred to by the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey)—the most recent of which was published a couple of weeks ago, have an important part to play in this.
	John Lyon will inherit a standards system that is in much finer fettle than that which awaited his predecessor in February 2002. Then, there was a distinct feeling, inside and outside the House, that the arrangements the House had put in place in 1995 were failing and were in need of radical reform. The Committee on Standards in Public Life initiated an inquiry, which could have recommended an end to our self-disciplinary procedures. The committee, rightly in my view, put its faith in continued self-regulation, and subsequent events have shown the wisdom and foresight of that decision. That the reputation of self-regulation was restored is due in no small part to the work of the current commissioner.
	I have already mentioned that the standards system is a dynamic one, and the commissioner has a key part to play in ensuring that it develops effectively. This debate provides a welcome opportunity to pay tribute to the work of Sir Philip Mawer in this respect. The Standards and Privileges Committee supported a three-legged strategy: first, emphasising prevention; secondly, carrying out impartial and robust investigations of complaints; and thirdly, proposing initiatives aimed at ensuring that the standards arrangements continue to reflect expectations both inside and outside the House. Sir Philip has enhanced the reputation of the House's standards arrangements.
	On the first count, the proactive work of the commissioner and his team, particularly at the start of Parliaments, but also at other times—including when changes are made to the system—has helped to reduce the scope for inadvertent breaches. That is important, because all breaches, deliberate and inadvertent, impact on public perceptions of, and confidence in, Members generally and the reputation of the House as an institution. In tidying up the registration requirements and rationalising, where possible, those of the House and the Electoral Commission, he has made it simpler for Members to meet their obligations. He has also improved the visibility of Members' interests: up-to-date versions of the register are now more readily accessible as a result of the decision to update the internet version fortnightly when the House is sitting.
	On the second count, the commissioner has made 47 formal reports to the Committee, one of which—that relating to the complaints against the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Galloway)—was the most lengthy and one of the most complex reports ever undertaken. On the basis of those reports, the Committee required remedial action in six cases, and the House took action against Members, on the Committee's recommendation, in three further cases. Sir Philip's inquiries have been fair and thorough in all cases, and his reports clear and succinct. I am heartened, though, that so few serious cases have arisen on his watch, which reinforces my own view of the generally high standards of Members' conduct.
	On the third count, the commissioner has led a review of the code of conduct, approved by the House in 2005, and a review of the guide to the rules, which the Committee expects to report on soon. He has introduced extensions of the rectification procedure, to increase the range of circumstances in which minor infractions can be dealt with effectively without the formality of a report to the House. Other developments are also in prospect, as outlined in the commissioner's most recent report.
	Sir Philip Mawer has been an outstanding commissioner, who took over one of the most difficult jobs in public life and made a success of it. He has played a key part in restoring confidence in our disciplinary procedures. The extent to which his experience is sought out internationally is a tribute to the distinguished service he has given the House for some five and three quarter years. We wish him well in his new post as the Government's adviser on ministerial interests, and we welcome his successor to the post.

Harriet Harman: I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) and the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) in asking the House to agree to the motion. Both Members emphasised the significance of this issue. It is important that the House has high standards and that the public know that to be the case. To ensure that it is the case, it is right that there is a clear, visible and effective process in place for addressing possible breaches of the code and the rules of conduct for Members of Parliament, and that there are arrangements to offer authoritative advice to Members to ensure that they can be confident that they are adhering to those requirements.
	Since 1995, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has played an important part in that: by giving Members appropriate advice to avoid situations that might give rise to allegations of breaches of the code of conduct; by helping to keep the code of conduct for Members of Parliament, and the associated mechanisms for enforcement, up to date; and by investigating and reporting complaints, where necessary, to the Standards and Privileges Committee.
	The motion asks the House to approve the appointment of Mr. John Lyon CB as Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards from January 2008 for a non-renewable period of five years. The document that has been published by the House of Commons Commission about the selection process for the new appointment has been helpfully explained. It sets out how Mr. John Lyon was chosen and provides information both about the post and about him. I know him to be an eminent public servant with substantial experience in areas requiring significant discretion and judgment. I had the privilege of working with him when he was a senior civil servant and I was a Minister in the Ministry of Justice. He has been selected following an open competition. I am very happy to add my voice to the recommendation to the House to agree to the motion providing for his appointment. I wish him well in the task and I know that all hon. Members will give him their full co-operation.
	This is also an opportunity to thank—as other Members have done—Sir Philip Mawer for all he has done in his nearly six years serving the House as commissioner. Sir Philip has contributed greatly to the further development of the role of the commissioner, through the publication of annual reports and through his contributions to changes in the way complaints are handled by the Standards and Privileges Committee. He has had some difficult cases to investigate. As the House will know, Sir Philip is to become the Prime Minister's independent adviser on ministerial interests and we wish him well in that new role.
	This is an appropriate opportunity also to thank those involved in the other parts of the House's system for delivering standards: the Registrar of Members' Interests—Alda Barry, who is always helpful to Members—and her team, and the Standards and Privileges Committee, chaired by the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire. The sort of post that has been taken up by the hon. Member for North Devon is not likely to mean that people march in the streets demanding that he become the next leader of the Liberal Democrats, and people are not queuing up to thank the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire for his work. However, if they did not do that work, the House would not operate properly. It is important that they do their work and that we have an opportunity to recognise it, given that it is insufficiently recognised outside the House. I pay tribute to them for the way in which they do their work. They get little credit for it, but it is important.
	The House will have noted from the latest annual report of the present commissioner, published recently, that the Committee plans in due course to bring to the House a revised guide to the rules relating to the conduct of Members—including the outcome of discussion with the Electoral Commission about the alignment of the House's registration requirements with those of the commission—and provisions for the reform of the rules on all-party groups. The House will, of course, have an appropriate opportunity to consider those matters in due course.
	In conclusion, I once again record our thanks to Sir Philip for his contribution to the work of the House over the years and to improving public confidence in that work, and, in the expectation that the House will endorse the motion, I welcome Mr. Lyon to his new responsibilities from January 2008.

Robert Smith: I, too, take this opportunity to recognise the work of Sir Philip and the Committee on Standards and Privileges. Without them the integrity of the House could not be protected. Without their hard work and due diligence the standing of the House and MPs would be affected, and it would be much more difficult to deal with problems. As the report says, Sir Philip's integrity and impartiality has been recognised. Public confidence, the lack of media headlines on the subject and the fact that there are not too many complaints within the House suggest that he has found a careful balance between keeping the House's reputation and ensuring the smooth operation the House's work.
	Like the Leader of the House, I pay tribute to members of the Committee and of the House of Commons Commission, because their work does not have a high public profile—or hopefully does not; occasionally it can. The fact that they get on with their work smoothly behind the scenes makes it easier for the rest of us to operate.
	The process for appointing the new Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards appears to be fair, with a proper, open and transparent system of advertising, nominations and interviews. The House of Commons Commission and the interview board seem to have done their work, and I see no reason why the House should not endorse that work by supporting the motion. I welcome Mr. John Lyon to his job for the next five years. The House took the right decision in making the post non-renewable, so that the appointee has clear and transparent independence. I wish Mr. Lyon all the best for the coming years in which he will serve the House and its integrity. Again, I pay tribute to the work of Sir Philip, and wish him all the best in his new career.

Theresa May: I support the motion to appoint John Lyon the new Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and I echo the comments made by other right hon. and hon. Members. First, I should like to mention the work done by the Committee on Standards and Privileges, chaired ably by my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young). The Leader of the House said that my right hon. Friend's role—and that of the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey), who is spokesman for the House of Commons Commission—is not the sort of role that is likely to get people dancing in the streets and crying out, with acclaim, that those who hold them should have more senior roles in their parties or in Parliament. Similarly, the role taken by members of the Standards and Privileges Committee will not necessarily always endear them to their peers in the Chamber, but they all carry out their responsibilities with distinction, and we are grateful to them for their work.
	The House owes Philip Mawer a debt of gratitude for the way in which he undertook his role; he performed it with great distinction. Crucially, he has enhanced the belief, and the comfort that people take, in self-regulation in the House. He undertook his role with impartiality, but with robustness, and dealt with Members of the House with courtesy. I wish him well in his future endeavours, as others have done.
	I am pleased to welcome the motion to appoint John Lyon to the position. He has had a distinguished career in the civil service. Throughout that career, he has shown integrity and, crucially, steely determination, as well as a willingness and ability to stand up to Members of Parliament and others. He has an understanding of the House and of the role that he must play as Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. As the hon. Member for North Devon says, John Lyons understands the balance between prevention and investigation. His ability to marry that steely determination and integrity with an understanding of the House will make him a worthy successor to Sir Philip Mawer.

Kevan Jones: I support the appointment of the new Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and I want to pay tribute to Sir Philip Mawer. I may have caused him some sleepless nights over the past 12 months, given the large investigation that he undertook into the complaint that my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and I made about the alleged misuse of Commons dining facilities. It was a complex investigation, and he dealt with it fairly and conscientiously. On a few occasions, I was on the receiving end of a rebuke from him for not getting the procedure right, but even that was done in a courteous and dignified manner. He has set the standard, as the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) said.
	We need to keep reinforcing in the public mind the fact that politics is an honourable profession, and that the House has honour. If the Standards and Privileges Committee and the new commissioner keep their high standards, those standards can be raised in the eyes of the public. We too easily become targets for sniping, although all hon. Members whom I know, on both sides, came into politics from the best of motives.
	One issue that needs addressing, and which the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) raised, is the capacity of the commissioner's office. The investigation that followed my complaint led to a lot of work for the commissioner, and very early on the new commissioner may have to review the issue of whether he needs extra resources. One investigation can take up a lot of time, and if two or three investigations are undertaken at one time there will be severe pressure, not just on the commissioner, but on his dedicated staff.
	Finally, I wish Sir Philip all the best and thank him for his work on our behalf. His new regulations have been adopted by the Administration Committee, but I hasten to tell him that I think that I have found one Member who is in breach of them. However, if I have to submit a complaint, I may well wait and do so to the new commissioner.

Peter Bottomley: I may reread the report, but as I understand it, it was one of the reports that hardened up the recommendation that the Commissioner had made. If I misunderstand it, I do not think I am the only one. I hope that I shall be able to put myself right and get my constituents to come up again, as they used to do.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Ordered,
	That Mr John MacDonald Lyon CB be appointed Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards on the terms of the Report of the House of Commons Commission, HC 1096, dated 24th October.— [Nick Harvey.]

Douglas Alexander: I beg to move,
	That this House has considered the matter of international development.
	It is right that the House should concern itself with ending the injustice of global poverty, and that it should debate that issue today. I am grateful for the experience, expertise and scrutiny that many Members bring to the issue, not least my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke). He has been, as I am sure the whole House will agree, a tireless campaigner against global poverty for many years, and the International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Act 2006, which originally carried his name as a private Member's Bill, is and will prove an excellent contribution to my Department's reporting. That Act will help the British people to hold Government to account for promises made, and the Department for International Development's 2007 annual report, which we have tagged to today's debate, is the first to be produced according to the provisions of the Act.
	Today the International Development Committee published its response to the Department for International Development's annual report, and I thank the members of the Committee for their detailed consideration of these issues. My Department will formally respond to the IDC's report in the coming months, but in the course of my remarks this afternoon I will highlight the recent comprehensive spending review settlement and its implications for my Department's work, highlight emerging challenges that I believe we must address in order to see progress towards the millennium development goals, and briefly touch on the main conclusions of the IDC's response to the Department's annual report.
	Yet amidst all those discussions of funding and financing, of policies and programmes, we must recognise the scale of the human suffering that we are called to address. In a world that is eight times richer than just 50 years ago, every three seconds a child still loses their life simply because they are poor. Every 11 seconds, a person still loses their life from AIDS, an illness that should no longer be a death sentence, for we have the medicine to manage it. Every minute, a woman dies because of complications during pregnancy or childbirth—500,000 women are losing their lives each year simply because they sought to give a life.
	Although those figures reveal the scale of the challenge that we face, I suggest to the House that with courage, ingenuity and commitment, real progress can be achieved. In the past 40 years, life expectancy in developing countries has increased by a quarter. In the past 30 years, illiteracy rates have halved. In the past 20 years, 400 million people have been lifted out of absolute poverty. We are close to eradicating the disease of polio from the face of the earth.
	Such work has been the mission of the Department for International Development for the past decade, since we brought international development from the periphery of Government to the Cabinet table. We again showed our commitment as a Government to global poverty eradication in last month's comprehensive spending review. Today marks the first opportunity for the House to discuss fully the implications of that comprehensive spending review settlement for development.
	Through that settlement, the Government will provide more than £9 billion of aid a year by 2010, four times as much as back in 1997. That keeps us on track to meet our timetabled commitment—the first such commitment made by a UK Government—to spend 0.7 per cent. of gross national income on aid by 2013. This increase in aid will enable Britain to deliver on our promises to help developing countries make faster progress towards the millennium development goals.
	We will double aid to Africa by 2010, as promised at Gleneagles. We will meet our pledge to spend £8.5 billion on education by 2015, providing enough resources to pay for 10 years of education for 15 million children. We will provide £1 billion for the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, to tackle three diseases that together account for 6 million deaths a year. Our contribution of £1.4 billion for the international finance facility for immunisation will help to save the lives of 5 million children by 2015.
	The scale of the increase in official development assistance provides new opportunities to tackle disease, illiteracy and poverty, but with these enhanced opportunities come enhanced responsibilities. The IDC's report today raises the issue of ensuring aid effectiveness while my Department simultaneously reduces administrative costs. I believe that the British people would expect efficiency savings in a Department that received such a generous increase of resources in the comprehensive spending review. They have a right to know that their money is being well spent on their behalf, and the nature of DFID's work does not, and should not, exempt us from such scrutiny. Indeed, when the very pounds that we spend can mark the difference between life and death, between schooling and illiteracy, it is all the more urgent.
	In recent years, while my Department's overall budget has increased, our overall staff numbers have decreased, yet the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's authoritative development assistance committee review last year described the period as
	"a golden age of growth and achievement"
	for the Department for International Development. The IDC says that our work in the poorest countries and in fragile states requires particular resources. I can assure the House that we keep such staffing under review. By way of example, I draw the House's attention to the fact that our staffing in the Democratic Republic of Congo has more than doubled in the past two years, from 18 to 39, and our staff in Sudan has increased from 15 to 27 in the past year.
	As I hope my remarks at the Dispatch Box today have reflected, I am determined that the Government's aid, whether bilateral or multilateral, should aim to deliver maximum impact and represent value for money. So to provide further scrutiny of my Department's efforts, I am pleased to announce to the House today the appointment of David Peretz as chair of the new independent advisory committee on development impact. Mr. Peretz brings great experience to the committee from his work as an independent consultant and senior adviser to the International Monetary Fund independent evaluation office, the World Bank, and the Commonwealth Secretariat. I have placed details of the membership of the committee in the Commons Library, and Members of the House will note that it contains leading experts on development and evaluation. The committee will meet for the first time next month, and I am confident that it will provide effective scrutiny of DFID's evaluation, and in so doing help to ensure continued quality to our aid spending.

Douglas Alexander: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend's experience and expertise in this field. I travelled to Afghanistan in August—next week I will be in both Tanzania and Kenya—to see for myself the difference that British taxpayers' resources can make to the development efforts within those countries. We have shared peer-to-peer review and a whole system of accountability mechanisms directly with Governments, but little proves to be more effective than ensuring that there is a strong and effective Parliament capable of holding an Executive to account. In addition, the strong support of civil society can throw the torchlight of transparency on to expenditure in those countries. That is why I was pleased to announce that additional £20 million today to help assist the efforts of non-governmental organisations in countries such as those we have described.
	To return for a moment to the issue of Darfur and Afghanistan, our aid is helping such communities that are affected by conflict. Indeed, just last week, President Karzai announced that, thanks to improvements in health care supported by DFID and other donors, almost 90,000 children who would have died under Taliban rule will now survive. The new cross-government stabilisation aid fund, together with the conflict prevention pool set out in the comprehensive spending review, will provide nearly £600 million over the next three years to prevent, manage and resolve conflict. By doing so, we can create the conditions needed for effective state-building and economic development.
	The comprehensive spending review will enable Britain to meet its promises on increasing aid for basic services, to improve governance—as we have just discussed— and to reduce conflict. But tackling global poverty of course requires more than simply more aid. I am determined that my Department will build on its successes in aid agency in recent years to tackle the challenges facing developing countries at the beginning of the 21st century. Two of those greatest challenges are how to increase growth and trade and how to tackle climate change. Let me deal with both those issues.
	The importance of growth to development is clear. About 500 million people have been lifted out of poverty in the last 20 years alone and 80 per cent. of that poverty reduction has been due to increased economic growth. To increase growth, we must support poor people to maximise their economic activity. For seven out of 10 Africans, that activity remains agriculture. The IDC report today highlights the importance of agriculture to the developing world, to which I now turn my attention.
	My Department has committed more than £200 million over the past five years to agricultural research. Our support for research to date has helped to identify drought-tolerant maize, which will help African farmers to increase their harvest by up to 50 per cent. We have helped to develop new rice varieties for Africa, which, in Nigeria, for example, have helped to reduce imports of rice by more than 800,000 tonnes in one year alone. In recent weeks, I have met Kofi Annan to discuss how we can best support his new alliance for a green revolution in Africa to produce further breakthroughs. My Department also provides support for the agricultural needs of rural communities through other programmes such as social protection, land reform and the provision of rural roads. In Malawi, our support for the Government's fertiliser and seed subsidy programme has contributed to a harvest surplus of 1 million tonnes. In Uganda, we have provided direct budget support to the Government, supporting reforms that have reduced rural poverty in the past 15 years from nearly two thirds of the population to just over a third.

Douglas Alexander: The right hon. Gentleman brings his considerable expertise to bear on this question. I have reflected on the issue in recent months in the Department. In a previous era, the United Kingdom gave a great deal of direct support on agriculture through the provision of experts to developing countries. Since we have moved to a country ownership model of development, that has changed. DFID work's on agriculture and infrastructure has been given a re-emphasis and a redirection.
	It is right to acknowledge the continuing priority given to basic services, whether in health, education or water and sanitation. Given the resource base that the Department has now secured, however, I am convinced that an opportunity exists for real thought leadership. That applies equally to growth, where we can provide growth diagnostics and assistance to countries to develop their own growth path, and to agriculture, given the expertise of the research base in the United Kingdom.
	In recent months, in relation to agriculture, I have set a challenge to my officials not to seek to replicate in every country a provision that is now deemed outdated, given the country leadership approach. Instead, they should see what better links can be made between the quality of expertise that the United Kingdom still retains, the effective matrix of international research now undertaken in agriculture and the work continually undertaken by developing country Governments, given the overwhelming significance of agriculture in many of their economies. Therefore, the point is well taken.

Pete Wishart: The Secretary of State is right to identify economic growth as the major driver in ending poverty, as it has delivered many people out of poverty. Is he not therefore concerned about the early introduction of the economic partnership agreements to the six African, Caribbean and Pacific regions, possibly against their best interests? What is the reason for the rush? Why is the deadline in December? Should not we wait to ensure that what we do is in the best interests of those countries, so that we do not destroy the economic growth that could bring more people out of poverty in Africa?

Douglas Alexander: The hon. Gentleman anticipates a point that I was going to make, but I will deal briefly with his substantive point. This week, I have had a long and detailed telephone conversation with Peter Mandelson, the Trade Commissioner, on the issue. Next week, I will travel to Brussels for the General Affairs and External Relations Council, at which economic partnership agreements will be one of the key issues. Also this week, with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, in his joint role as Minister with responsibility for trade, I had a discussion with non-governmental organisations from the Trade Justice Movement and related organisations. Economic partnership agreements are therefore very much at the forefront of our minds.
	The hon. Gentleman posed a question to me as to the urgency. Straightforwardly, the urgency is not set down by the European Commission per se, but the Cotonou agreement has been deemed World Trade Organisation-incompatible, and the deadline of 31 December is of long standing. Simply rolling forward the Cotonou provisions would be WTO-incompatible, and the deadline has been clear.
	That being said, United Kingdom NGOs have expressed concerns to me that, notwithstanding the urgency of finding a way forward with each of the ACP countries, the British Government should not resile from our policy commitments of March 2005, when in a previous incarnation as Minister with responsibility for trade I was responsible for framing our policies on economic partnership agreements. This week, I have talked those issues through with the NGOs and the Trade Commissioner. I made it clear to him that we continue to want to see the type of economic partnership agreements for which we have long argued—those that can reasonably be understood as development-friendly and assisting developing countries.
	It is important, however, to uphold the case, for which the evidence is now overwhelming, that trade, given the right support and context, is a hugely powerful driver of economic growth and poverty reduction. It is impossible to cite a country that has lifted itself out of poverty in the past 40 years without external trade. While I have great sympathy with those who campaign, as I have done, for a fairer set of trade rules, I have little sympathy for some in the anti-globalisation movement who suggest that the quickest way out of poverty is somehow not to see a greater degree of liberalisation and a reformulation of the world trade rules. The challenge is to make sure that we are in the room arguing for not simply free but fair trade. Economic partnership agreements can contribute to that development-friendly goal that we share, and that is why I will make that case in Brussels early next week.

Hugh Bayley: I am pleased to hear the Secretary of State laying emphasis on the importance of a private sector to growth. I hope that he shares the belief that it is important to develop in Africa an indigenous small business sector, which lies between foreign investment by multinationals and micro-credit at the lower level. That is particularly important in relation to agriculture, because a lack of credit is one of the things that stops small farmers becoming bigger farmers. Will he talk with the African Development Bank, possibly with CDC, and possibly with, for example, the German bank ProCredit, to see whether more can be done to provide small and medium-sized African farmers with the credit that they need to increase production?

Douglas Alexander: I find myself in agreement with my hon. Friend. The approach in relation to the African Development Bank, the principal regional development bank dealing with that continent's challenges, is consistent with the approach that I want DFID to take more broadly with the other multilateral institutions within the international system. Given that we have resources to deploy following the generous comprehensive spending review settlement that we have achieved, we should try to provide generous finance. In the coming weeks there will be a decision on the next round of funding for the African Development bank, and we are giving serious consideration to that. However, as well as providing extra resources, we should aim to exert more influence over the policy choices made by institutions such as the development bank.
	My hon. Friend has made a good point about the need for credit to enable small businesses to develop in Africa, but I do not think we should limit our ambitions to the livelihoods of small farmers and traders, vital though that is. We should reflect on the business achievements of Mo Ibrahim, who has been much in the newspapers in recent months following the establishment of the Mo Ibrahim international prize. It is a powerful illustration of the transforming economic effect of Africa-based organisations such as Celtel. The use of mobile phones in Kenya is an example. Celtel has radically transformed not just the connectivity of the continent of Africa, but its opportunities for economic development. Interesting statistics are emerging about the effect on economic growth in the immediate community when Africans are given mobile phones.
	Certainly we want to support the livelihoods of small traders and farmers, and certainly we want more provision of credit to allow businesses to be started. However, we should also support the work of multinational enterprises in Africa as well as the development of major international players out of Africa. In recent days I have met representatives of Business Action for Africa, a combination of multinationals working on the continent. Where they comply with the best standards and the international guidelines, many of which we have been central to devising, we strongly welcome their engagement as a means of providing the people of Africa with additional support, investment and opportunities.
	In the last month alone I have met Pascal Lamy, Kamal Nath and Susan Schwab, the United States trade representative, and have engaged in conversations with the Kenyan and South African Trade Ministers. In each of those conversations, I made clear that the United Kingdom's No. 1 trade policy is to deliver the promise of a development round in the Doha development talks. There is little be gained and much to be lost from further delay.
	As I have said, we will participate in discussions on economic partnership agreements with the Commission next week through the General Affairs and External Relations Council. We will reiterate our concern to ensure that such agreements benefit African, Pacific and Caribbean countries. However, all the benefits of growth that we have discussed this afternoon, and the opportunity for trade to contribute to that growth, are imperilled unless we also recognise the threat posed to development by climate change, whose effects—feared by many in developed countries—are already being felt in the poorest regions of the world. Lake Chad is no longer a lake but a dust bowl, malaria is spreading to the highlands of Kenya owing to temperature rises, and declining rainfall in Darfur has turned millions of hectares of grazing land into desert.
	Today's report from the International Development Committee rightly raises concerns about the impact of climate change on development. My Department has committed £74 million for research and improving adaptation in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It has also conducted climate risk assessments in countries as diverse as China, India and Kenya, and we are helping to build the capacity of developing country Governments to tackle climate change in the years to come.
	Since 2004, the Department has been working in Bangladesh with the country's Government on a number of climate change projects, including helping communities to prepare for disasters such as flooding which afflict the country all too often, particularly in coastal areas. The new environmental transformation fund, valued at £800 million, will provide further help for developing countries, enabling them to adapt, safeguard their environments and fund low-carbon paths towards growth and economic prosperity. We are also working across Government to press for global post-Kyoto agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Bali conference next month will be a vital next staging post on the journey.
	Another issue raised in the IDC's report is the central importance of helping women to achieve the millennium development goals. Only last month, at the World Bank annual meetings, I worked with my Dutch, German and Nordic counterparts to secure language in the communiqué to highlight
	"that gender equality and women's rights are crucial for sustainable poverty reduction".
	My Department set out its commitment in a gender equality action plan earlier this year, in last year's White Paper, in the new public service agreement and in the 2006 White Paper.
	We have underlined our commitment with action. Last month I announced that we would give an additional £100 million to the United Nations Population Fund to support its work on maternal health. The Department has long championed girls' education. Our support for Afghanistan has helped to get 2 million girls in school, where under the Taliban there where none. My Department has been at the forefront of research into microbicides to give women control over their right to safe sex.
	My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said that the world is facing a development emergency that requires emergency action. The terrible figures that I cited earlier underline that assessment. At the beginning of the 21st century, we find ourselves in a world that remains too unsafe, too unequal and too unsustainable, but we also have the technology to tackle disease and the resources to fight hunger and illiteracy. We have seen progress on all those fronts in recent years. The proportion of the world's population living in extreme poverty has fallen from a third in 1990 to less than a fifth today. Aid increases and debt cancellation have helped to put 40 million more African children into school in just the past seven years. My Department has provided more than 40 million insecticide-treated bed nets since 2001, saving well over 600,000 lives.
	It is not inevitable that 1 billion of our neighbours should live in extreme poverty. The era of globalisation has brought international communication, international travel and international trade. We must now strive together for international justice. We must extend opportunity to the world's poorest to be educated, to be healthy and to fulfil their potential. The challenge in doing so is great and cannot be met by Britain alone, but this Government will ensure that Britain continues to lead in the fight against poverty, as we have done for the past decade.

Andrew Mitchell: The Secretary of State has made a most interesting speech today and we welcome the debate. Indeed, we believe that there should be more debates in this House on international development, not least to reflect the huge interest among our constituents in these matters.
	It is about a year since the House unanimously supported the International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Bill proposed by the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke). It was my understanding, and that, I think, of most hon. Members, that we would have a debate each year specifically on the annual report to which the Bill referred. I know that the Secretary of State has said that the report is tagged but, for the future, I hope that the Minister will confirm explicitly that we will have an annual debate on his Department's annual report.
	As virtually everyone in Britain accepts, the imperatives of international development are not Labour or Conservative but part of a British agenda to make sure that our generation's determination to see definitive progress in the eradication of global poverty is fulfilled. I want at the outset to pay tribute to the work of DFID and the dedication of so many who work in this field in taking forward this British agenda and national commitment.
	The comprehensive spending review last month rightly outlined a big increase in aid spending. The aid budget will increase from £5.4 billion to nearly £8 billion in 2010-11. As the Select Committee has pointed out, the impact of climate change will be earlier and more severe for poor countries. I saw this most starkly in Bangladesh recently where a tiny rise in the water level will destroy the homes and livelihoods of millions of people. We see the effects of climate change even in the conflict in Darfur. It would be helpful if the Secretary of State, on another occasion, set out directly and in some detail the steps he is taking with his increased budget to assist with adaptation and mitigation strategies.
	The scale of the increase in aid funding is both colossal and welcome, but it throws into even starker relief the key question that confronts all of us who are passionate about international development: how to spend this money as effectively as possible. As fiscal tightness bites in other areas, taxpayers will demand tangible evidence of results for this spending. That is why the Conservative party, making clear our absolute commitment to reaching the 0.7 per cent. target by 2013, has also made it clear that, in government, we will introduce a powerful and independent aid watchdog to ensure that poor people get the maximum benefit from every penny of British aid.

Hugh Bayley: When John Major was Prime Minister I introduced a Bill to ensure that the sole focus of the British aid programme would be poverty reduction. The Conservative party Whips at that time—I seem to remember that the hon. Gentleman was one of them—made sure that that did not became law until we got a Labour Government. Will the hon. Gentleman give a commitment that if the Conservatives ever get back into office they will never move away from the poverty focus that is now a legal requirement for the aid programme—that they will not, for instance, return to the aid for trade provision?

Andrew Mitchell: I can give the hon. Gentleman the undertaking he seeks—and in doing so I am not making any great news, as the leader of my party has consistently and explicitly made that point.
	British taxpayers need to know that their money is directly and incontrovertibly delivering the biggest reduction in poverty and suffering around the world. After months of Conservative pressure, the Government announced that they would establish an independent advisory committee on development impact for the Department for International Development, but on close inspection their proposal is a half-hearted and watered-down version of what we propose. It will merely issue polite reflections on how well DFID is evaluating itself. I sense that Sir Humphrey has been on the case. The Secretary of State might have secured some outstanding people to serve on his committee, but it is not the people but the remit with which we are concerned. I urge Ministers to re-examine the issue and establish a powerful and independent aid watchdog along the lines proposed in the Conservative party policy group report.
	We have long argued that the Government are over-preoccupied with inputs and insufficiently concerned with outputs—and outcomes—and I was pleased to see that the International Development Committee on page 3 of its most recent report states:
	"We are concerned that DFID continues to emphasise inputs rather than outcomes".
	The commitment we all share to increase spending must be a means to an end, not an end in itself.
	A growing budget means that there is an even greater need for rigorous independent scrutiny and constant active pressure to raise performance. It is in that context that we share the Select Committee's concern about staff numbers being cut at the very time when the Department's budget is set to increase so significantly. Spending more money with fewer people means that there is likely to be direct budgetary support and more multilateral spending regardless of their desirability. It is clearly ridiculous that DFID's staffing requirements should be determined by a general Treasury diktat rather than the specific needs of DFID's rapidly expanding budget. The level of staffing in DFID should be determined by the job that we require the Department to do, rather than the other way round. The Conservative priority is clear: effectiveness.
	It is vital that the Secretary of State's decisions on how to divide our scarce resources between the myriad different multilateral agencies is based on thorough, empirical analysis of the effectiveness of institutions in reducing poverty. I am therefore rather concerned that the multilateral effectiveness summaries promised for September 2007 have yet to be published. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us in his wind-up speech when these important documents are to be made public.
	The Secretary of State will shortly visit Tanzania. The country is something of a darling of the aid industry, as I discovered when I visited it in September. It is the recipient of the largest British direct budget support with approximately £105 million paid directly into the Government's coffers this year. That is a colossal sum and we must receive an absolute assurance that the money is delivering real results and value for money.
	When the Secretary of State arrives, he will no doubt see the twin towers of the Bank of Tanzania rising high above the Dar es Salaam skyline. He will hear the allegations of corruption that have been levelled in relation to the construction of those towers and in regard to senior public figures. He will no doubt be aware of the Tanzania radar deal that his decent and honourable predecessor was forced to defend, with palpable embarrassment, in the House earlier this year.
	So I hope that in Tanzania, the Secretary of State will examine direct budget support with a critical eye. We all know the powerful arguments in favour of such support—the promoting of country ownership and the strengthening of Government systems—but he must satisfy himself that such money is properly spent, that his officials maintain their objectivity, and that they do not become in-country advocates of direct budgetary support while overlooking the problems with that policy.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: Can the hon. Gentleman confirm whether it is the policy of his Government to support— [ Interruption. ] I meant to say, is it his party's policy to provide support to Governments in developing countries? It is incredibly important that we build the capacity of those Governments and their scrutiny mechanisms, so that they can spend the money wisely and account for it. That is the clear way forward—does his party support it?

Andrew Mitchell: The hon. Lady referred to my Government, and I am sure that she is wrong merely on a matter of timing. I can assure her that we fully understand the importance of using direct budgetary support where we can—indeed, I was making that very case—and where we can the next Conservative Government will certainly do so.
	I know that the Secretary of State has studied with interest the proposal that I announced at the Conservative party conference to boost the ability of British doctors and health professionals to work, train and teach in developing countries. Our plans have been backed by leading non-governmental organisations, including Voluntary Services Overseas, the Tropical Health and Education Trust and Merlin. The Secretary of State will know that working abroad is a particularly intensive and demanding form of training for our doctors, but they return with an expanded set of skills and are better doctors for British patients as a result.
	Every doctor I have ever met who has worked in a developing country speaks of the huge benefits, personal and professional, that they have gained, but too often doctors and nurses in Britain face serious obstacles to achieving their aim of making a contribution in poor countries. Time spent abroad is often not accredited and does not help doctors to progress in their careers. Sadly, the Government's modernising medical careers initiative has made things significantly worse. We Conservatives want to reduce the barriers that British health professionals face when they want to work in poor countries. A Conservative Government will establish a new health systems partnership fund—worth £5 million a year to begin with—that would pay for VSO to organise year-long placements for up to 250 British health workers to work in developing countries. It would pay toward the pension contributions of these long-term volunteers, pay for THET to expand its efforts to link British health care institutions with those in developing countries, and match pound for pound money raised by health care institutions to fund international links and visits, up to a maximum of £10,000 per institution. It would also help to fund an electronic health exchange called HealthBay, where requests for help from the developing world would be matched against offers from developed countries. I hope that the Government will make it a priority to introduce proposals in this area in the near future.
	I turn to trade, and the role of the private sector in particular. The Government need to work harder to secure a successful outcome to the Doha round. As the Secretary of State acknowledged, this trade round was always meant to be about development, and much more needs to be done. Conservative proposals for a real trade campaign, set out by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition in the Rwandan Parliament in July, called on world leaders to open their markets for goods from poor countries and to invest in aid for trade to help countries, particularly those in Africa, to tap into the potential of the global market. We believe that the proposals command genuine cross-party support and hope that the Government will embrace them.
	Will the Secretary of State tell the House what he and his Ministers are doing to rescue the Doha trade round from the deadlock that prevails? Does he agree that a deal was tantalisingly close earlier this year? What steps is he taking to progress this important agenda?

Andrew Mitchell: I knew that it was a mistake for me to give way to the hon. Gentleman for a second time. First, he knows that there are a number of different blockages on the Doha round; the position of the European Union was a particular difficulty, but it is now much less so. Secondly, he knows that the support for Commissioner Mandelson's views—the position of all the parties in this House—is considerable. Britain negotiates these matters through the European Union, rather than bilaterally, and the point that the hon. Gentleman makes is, as I suggested to the Secretary of State, a ridiculous one.
	I wish to address the important matter of European partnership agreements. As has been stated, the deadline for African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to sign them is rapidly approaching. My hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown), the shadow Minister for international development and trade, has just returned from a visit to ACP countries, where he met Ministers and senior officials to discuss these important issues. He will have a number of points to raise if he catches your eye later in the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall be visiting Guyana next week to discuss these matters with Ministers there. It is most important that these agreements open markets and facilitate real benefits to ACP countries, whose determination to lift their people out of poverty must be matched by support and partnership from the wealthy countries of Europe.
	Further to the earlier more sensible comments from the hon. Gentleman about the private sector, over recent weeks there appears to have been a welcome recognition by Ministers that economic growth needs to move sharply up the development agenda. I have enjoyed reading the speeches of Baroness Vadera. She argues strongly that growth is essential for poverty reduction, saying that
	"without growth, sustainable human development is a largely theoretical proposition. We also sometimes lose sight of the fact that the purpose of aid is to no longer require it. Unchanging long term aid dependency should be a measure of our failure."
	That shift of emphasis may well herald a determination by Ministers to inject more private-sector DNA into DFID. If so, that would be a good thing.
	I draw the Secretary of State's attention to the stimulating report of the Canadian Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, published in February, which makes a passionate call for private sector-led development. It argues that Governments must lower the cost of doing business and create environments that are attractive for private sector growth and investment. Those are important arguments. If the Secretary of State's change of emphasis promotes them, we will strongly support him.
	I come now to the subject of agriculture and the support given by DFID. The Secretary of State defended the Department's record, and that is fair enough, but I also draw his attention to the excellent passage in the report from the Conservative party's globalisation and global poverty group that deals with productivity and agriculture. Similarly, I draw his attention to the wise comments in the Select Committee on International Development report published today, which argues that DFID has shifted its focus in recent years away from agriculture. The Committee believes that DFID's thinking needs to be rebalanced in that respect, and so do we.
	The final points that I wish to raise relate to resolving conflict and to fragile states. In today's report, the International Development Committee argues that DFID does not yet have
	"the measures in place to achieve its aim of promoting gender equality across its programmes."
	As I said in the debate more than a year ago on the 2006 White Paper, the Government—notwithstanding the defence that the Secretary of State has given today—still fail to address gender inequality. Women bear the greatest cost of poverty and too many girls do not go to school. Women bear the brunt of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and, of course, they most directly bear the brunt of conflict.
	We cannot escape the absolute and direct link between poverty on the one hand and conflict on the other, and therefore the prime importance of resolving conflict if international development is to succeed. The Government are making progress in how they address that inevitably cross-departmental issue, just as the UN is beginning to make some very modest progress in promoting its responsibility to protect. In Sudan, we need to see rapid progress on humanitarian relief, progress towards a political solution and an effective African Union-UN hybrid force.
	I have suggested previously that there is much more to be done to promote regional security arrangements and the use of NATO air power, not least in the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Darfur. It is no good the world solemnly embracing a responsibility to protect and thereby winning easy plaudits and headlines in New York, as they mean precisely nothing in the camps of Darfur and to the displaced people in Zimbabwe and Burma.
	On that note, I am particularly surprised that the Government have yet to accept in full the powerfully argued recommendation of the International Development Committee that aid to Burma should be quadrupled by 2013. The Conservatives have been making that argument now for nearly two years. As I said in the debate on Burma on Monday 29 October, we will honour the recommendation in full as soon as we have the opportunity in government. I invite the Secretary of State, who is not unreasonable on the matter, to reflect further on the proposal.
	I hope that when the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas), winds up, he will update us on progress on the international arms trade treaty. That is a proposal that, as he will know, enjoys the full support of the Conservative Party.
	I believe that the fight against global poverty, disease and malnutrition is a cause that unites all parties. We are fortunate to be the generations that have both an extraordinary opportunity and the wherewithal to make a huge difference at this time.

Andrew Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman is wrong in saying that the Conservatives at Westminster have opposed the policy that he describes. I speak from the Front Bench for the party, and I assure him that it has not made the statements that he ascribes to us.
	I have no doubt that in the years to come we in this House will marvel that for so long the international community has put up with leaders such as General Than Shwe, General Bashir, and President Mugabe. These are people unfit to exercise leadership over their country and their rightful place is behind bars in The Hague.
	The commitment of those whom we represent in this place is stronger now than ever before. It is up to all of us to ensure that aid effectiveness, good governance and an end to the era of impunity are turned from ambitious aims and theories into the practical realities and the delivery of international development.

Tom Clarke: I welcome the debate, especially on the eve of the important events tomorrow involving Children in Need. I thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for his kind reference at the start of his speech and the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) for the things he had to say.
	For the benefit of clarity, may I say that look forward to a debate on the report in response to the International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Act 2006? I say that because the Government have a very good story to tell. It is important, particularly in the light of the exchanges—if time allows, I will deal with them—between the Front-Bench spokesmen on devoting 0.7 per cent. of national income to overseas aid. It is extremely important that all Governments are monitored—that the Executive are held to account. I hope that I will not be accused of making party points when I say that the steep decline in the 1980s and 1990s in our progress towards achieving 0.7 per cent. of gross national income is another reason for this House to hold all Governments to account on that objective.
	I welcome the Select Committee response, published today, to the Department's annual report. As we have already heard, it made some interesting contributions. I believe that the Department for International Development is one of the finest Departments of Government. The annual report highlights that fact. I welcome the fact that in the past decade the focus in the House on international development and issues that relate to it has improved immensely. We have seen that the public awareness that that has influenced has itself led to a greater focus on the kind of policies that we have debated this afternoon and will continue to discuss, but also on the achievements on the big issues of aid, trade and debt. There are still problems to be addressed, but there are achievements to be noted, and I believe that the British public have played their part.
	One example lies in Bangladesh, which has already been discussed. Once famously described by an official in Henry Kissinger's department as an international basket case, today the country enjoys an annual growth rate of around 5 per cent. Child mortality has fallen from 133 per 1,000 in the early '90s to about 75 per 1,000 today. Funding provided by DFID has helped to lift more than 500,000 people out of extreme poverty. That represents progress indeed.
	I also want to applaud not only DFID's clear endorsement of the UN target of 0.7 per cent. of GNI, to which the report responds, but Government's strong commitment—repeated by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, I am delighted to say—to achieving it by 2013. The Government are entitled to be congratulated on where we are, because Britain is the second largest contributor of overseas aid in real terms. Indeed, if the current American trends continue, we will find ourselves in first place.
	I hope later to talk about the role of other nations in dealing with world poverty. However—I say this to all parts of the House—I hope that when the target of 0.7 per cent. of GNI is reached, it will be seen not as an end in itself but as a platform upon which the House can collectively build. I hope that the consensus that is emerging, certainly in this debate, will continue. I hope, too, that the opposition parties—the Conservative party, the Liberal Democrats and others—will take the opportunity to underline what the Government have made clear: namely, that if and when we reach that figure, we will not go back on it. I hope that we will not see the kind of scenario we saw in the past, with reductions in the figure—in this case restored by us in 2006 to 0.52 per cent., which was the rate in 1979.
	It is right that there should be that commitment. For example, HIV/AIDS is still a big problem. To look at the broader picture, 270,000 people in Botswana are HIV-positive. That is in a country of just 1.75 million people, meaning an infection rate of 15 per cent. In the UK, where around 70,000 people are currently infected, that would be the equivalent of 9 million people. HIV/AIDS remains a huge problem in sub-Saharan Africa. We know that 60 per cent. of the global problem of HIV/AIDS applies in those countries. Statistics are not readily available, but it is obvious that we will not achieve millennium development goal 6 in that respect. That remains a challenge to us all.
	I welcome the positive aspects of the report and what my right hon. Friend has said this afternoon. For example, Nigeria will receive £52 million for reproductive health and other issues. That might be regarded as a bilateral commitment. Multilaterally, £15 million will go to Unitaid, to help poor countries to benefit from new drugs to treat AIDS and other preventable diseases.
	We must take seriously the demographic evidence presented in the report—I refer to page 326 in particular—of the impact of HIV/AIDS on young women. A positive approach to maternal health is clearly of the essence. We cannot continue with a programme that means, for example, that we will not achieve millennium development goal 3, as it does, especially if that creates an impediment to reaching other millennium development goals.
	The challenges remain. We must ensure that we are addressing health care problems, that we are providing clean water, that we are taking education—particularly the education of girls—as seriously as we should, and that we are seeking to ensure that the wealth of nations is fairly shared.
	The Government are on course with regard to addressing effective governance. For example, they have deplored again and again the fact that so much money—about 60 per cent. of the GNI—is being spent in Darfur on armaments and on what amounts to warfare against a country's own people.
	Today of all days, as we sit here on the anniversary of the birth of Aneurin Bevan, we are entitled, on the basis of our own record, to appeal to other countries to join us in challenging the obscene image of world poverty that we see on our television screens. To those who are unconvinced of the relevance of this argument, perhaps we should suggest that enlightened self-interest might have its own appeal.

Lynne Featherstone: The Liberal Democrats very much welcome the opportunity presented by today's debate. I should like to put on record our congratulations to the Department for International Development on the work that it does. I never cease to be amazed by the scope and range of need in this world, and addressing that is a monumental task. DFID does a good job in that regard. I would also like to thank the International Development Committee for its work in scrutinising the Department. I shall try not to cover any ground that has already been covered today.
	As we enter the first full parliamentary Session under the new Prime Minister, who has rightly prided himself on his work on debt relief and international aid, this is an opportune moment to consider the wider performance on development, not just within DFID. I suppose that I expected a bit more of a revolution in the Government's approach to international development with the advent of the new Prime Minister. He has rightly lectured us on redoubling our efforts to make poverty history. Before he became Prime Minister, he promised that Britain would meet its international obligations in full. In New York earlier this year, he sternly wagged his finger at the world and told the United Nations that the pace of progress on the millennium development goals was too slow. The Liberal Democrats agree with him on that.
	Poverty was, however, reduced to a single line in the Queen's Speech:
	"Reducing global poverty will be a high priority for my Government, with renewed efforts to achieve the millennium development goals."
	I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will support that laudable sentiment. But let us consider what the Government's contribution to the millennium development goals could be, and how it could be better. The lack of clarity and consistency in their approach to development not only inhibits development projects but results in the ineffective use of taxpayers' money, as Conservative Members have already pointed out.
	We can do little about some of the natural disasters, such as tsunamis and earthquakes, that befall the world, but we can do something about what I term the three Cs—corruption, conflict and climate change—if there is the political will and, most importantly, joined-up thinking between the Departments. Those are three areas in which the means to bring about change lie close to hand and close to home.
	Corruption adds heavily to the cost of development aid. We should not underestimate the extent of local corruption, which needs local solutions. I was pleased that the Government announced more money for the governance programme, but Britain appears far too closely entwined in far too much corruption. I shall not go into the al-Yamamah deal—the billions of pounds of arms sales to Saudi and the money in Swiss bank accounts. For national security reasons, the Serious Fraud Office investigation was dropped although, thankfully, that decision is to be investigated by the High Court and BAE's dealings are being investigated in several countries. We should fully support the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development convention against bribery. We should be seen to support it, rather than trying wriggle out of its strictures when it suits us.
	We were comprehensively compromised by dropping that investigation, at the request of the Saudis. How does that square with our efforts on the millennium goal to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women? I noted with concern the Committee's findings that DFID has problems in practically implementing the gender equality policy, and it is not alone. At what point did the Prime Minister raise the issue of women's rights with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia? Was it when he apologised for the SFO getting as far as it did with the investigation? Was it when he was touting for business for arms deals? Was it during the King's state visit—the highest honour that can be bestowed on a country?
	I very much appreciate the idea that we should work constructively with countries where there are fundamental human rights failings. Indeed, our role in the west should not be constantly to hector and castigate developing nations. That would be to risk alienation and push them further away from the values that have brought us relative peace and prosperity; but rolling out the red carpet to give the absolute ruler of a country that is so far from achieving gender equality—

Lynne Featherstone: I apologise if I strayed too far from the track, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	Al-Yamamah is not the only problem. I fully concur with the Committee's support for DFID's new strategic objectives, especially the promotion of good governance, but I have to return to a consideration of how we operate in the UK. When the Nigerian dictator, General Sani Abacha, was looting billions from Nigeria, $1.3 billion ended up in 23 London banks, making them a profit at the expense of the neediest people in Nigeria. Much that is honourable and good is done in the City, not least the creation of jobs and wealth, but there is a dark, rotten secret—complicity in financial crime and its concealment.
	Offshore tax havens play a key role in corruption and the vast majority are based in countries closely connected with the UK because they are Crown dependencies or overseas territories. Many of those financial operations are run by the subsidiaries of major international banks operating in the UK. The tax havens may not be within immediate reach of a memo from No. 10, but there is no doubt that the British Prime Minister wields huge influence. The UK Government must do more to put pressure on our companies, our financial systems and our dependencies and overseas territories.

Hugh Bayley: The hon. Lady is right to focus on corruption. May I ask her to read the report, "The other side of the coin", published by the all-party group on Africa about 18 months ago? We pointed out that although it was important for the UK to do its part in undermining collaboration in the corrupt misuse of money in Africa, the problem is overwhelmingly an African one. If we create excuses for Africans not to improve their governance, the problem will never go away.

Lynne Featherstone: I welcome that intervention and I agree. Nevertheless, it is very hard for us to lecture Africa on corruption when we have some issues to clear up ourselves. I wish that the Government would turn their attention to one of the financial methods that has raised its ugly head and appears to be making a mockery of our own efforts on debt relief: the vulture fund. There has been no shortage of warm words on this subject. As far back as 2002, the Prime Minister, the then Chancellor, told the International Monetary Fund in Washington that
	"we need radical reform of the contractual arrangements for debt."
	He was right.
	Vulture funds do not tell us who they really are or pay our taxes, but they are happy to use British courts to extract money from heavily indebted countries. I am sure that hon. Members will be as horrified as I was to discover, when I finally obtained the figures from the World Bank, that more than £230 million has recently been reclaimed fully or in part through British courts from developing countries by vulture funds.
	Surely, British courts, in the same way as they afford rights and responsibilities to consumer debtors, should act to protect the rights of the poorest nations. We should tell those funds that, if they want to use British courts, they ought to play by our rules, and then we need to make those rules. We can no longer turn a blind eye, and as legislators we should move to outlaw that practice. I ask the Government to explore ways of negotiating an internationally binding agreement to ensure that companies cannot prey on heavily indebted poor countries, but we do not need a voluntary code.
	In the interim, because binding international agreements cannot be created overnight, I would love the Government to start looking at how our national laws can be changed to bar vulture funds from using Britain as a tool to milk heavily indebted poor countries. We need to draw a legal line in the sand between legitimate secondary debt and what is happening in those areas. Perhaps sovereign debt could be held in non-tradeable securities. The Government have many legal advisers and I do not have any, so I suggest that the Secretary of State International Development and the Prime Minister put their great minds to work on this. We cannot go on being a country that purports to have high standards of ethical behaviour while seeming to condone bribery, corruption and greed. That plea for joined-up thinking and action extends across almost all that we do.
	If we turn to the International Development Committee's findings, we find worrying reports that DFID is, as has been mentioned already, often focused on inputs, not on outcomes. That problem is made even worse by conflicting inputs from other Departments. If we consider the millennium development goal to eradicate hunger and extreme poverty, which is the baseline for all the millennium development goals, we see that a worrying global trend has been undermining what we seek to achieve.
	Some hon. Members might recall the Mexican tortilla protests in June, following the reported 400 per cent. rise in the price of corn. The rise was linked to the increasing demand for corn from America, as the Americans increase their bioethanol content for vehicle fuel. There is no doubt that biofuel, when it becomes a mature technology, will have a crucial and significant part to play in the urgent fight against climate change. Parties on both sides of the House are making climate change central to the fight for international development. As soon as bioethanol can be made efficiently from non-foodstuffs and is proved to use less carbon dioxide than it takes to make, biofuel will be at the forefront of the next generation of energy supply. However, given the current state of biofuel technology, foodstuffs are being diverted from human consumption to produce biofuel.
	We must question the logic of taking food out of the mouths of the poorest communities on our planet, so that Americans can fill up their sports utility vehicles. I am concerned about the Government's response to that development conundrum. It seems that we are busily signing the UK up to the EU targets on biofuels, without considering the disastrous consequences that those targets might have in driving up food prices. The Government have said that they are committed, quite rightly, to reducing the number of people living on less than a dollar a day, but what is the use of even a dollar a day when it is not enough to feed a family because of astronomical food price rises? So the evidence of the Government being focused on an input without regard for the outcome is rightly identified by the Select Committee.
	The second of the three Cs, climate change, is rapidly becoming the greatest threat, not only to us, but to the developing world, as the reports note. The parts of the globe that have done the least to bring about climate change will suffer the most. As the world's resources become scarcer, energy and water supplies will become the battlegrounds of the future and will give rise to more conflicts. We have to face up to our complicity in hurting the developing world. I concur with the Committee that mitigation is an urgent task, but we should not give up the game on prevention yet. That means radically and drastically cutting our impact on the globe, and it means developing countries playing their part in terms of their own emissions. We need a powerful climate change Bill with real teeth—I am a bit concerned that the one we are getting has dentures.
	I come now to education. The Prime Minister is committed to educating the children of the developing world, but more than half of the 77 million children of school age around the world who are not in school are from conflict-affected fragile states. That damage to education will last for generations. The skills and education to recover from the devastation of years of conflict just will not be there. Some 80 per cent. of the 20 poorest countries have endured major conflict in the past 15 years. Conflict completely wrecks development progress—all that work and funding—almost overnight, leaving a terrible, long and painful legacy.
	I was pleased when the then Chancellor said that he would support a special teaching emergency force to go into conflict areas to ensure that children whose family, home and life are torn away by war have the interim support of schooling and teachers. Coincidentally, that was almost identical to my idea for an education version of the Red Cross. I can only assume that great minds think alike, because we do not nick policies in this House. But where is that force? Have the Government delivered on that? Perhaps the Secretary of State will be able to confirm the reports I have heard that, one year into a five-year programme, only £2.5 million of the £50 million promised for the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been delivered. That does not seem enough.

Lynne Featherstone: I thank the Secretary of State for that intervention, because I was about to say that if there was a 0.1 per cent. difference—perhaps he can still explain that to me, as the figure appears on the website—it would put things slightly off track. Perhaps we could examine that later.
	Liberal Democrat Members would welcome a renewed sense of urgency from the Government on development. The Committee rightly pointed to the urgent work that is needed at the heart of the Department for International Development to drive efficiency, and I agree on that point, but we need to go one step further. Development can no longer be seen as a silo, and as a foreign affairs accessory that can be trotted out, and sometimes used as a fig leaf to hide some of the Government's more contradictory actions.

Douglas Alexander: I am grateful for the hon. Lady's generosity. She seems to be suggesting, perhaps inadvertently, that the aid that is provided is tied. It is already a matter of record in this debate that British aid is now untied. It would be unfortunate if the House was left with the impression that she was suggesting that the significant uplift, which should be a cause of celebration on both sides of the House, will be used for anything other than poverty reduction. Will she take the opportunity to congratulate the Prime Minister on honouring the commitments made at Gleneagles, and on ensuring that the money that is committed and available to DFID and other Departments will be spent on poverty reduction?

Lynne Featherstone: I accept that. I was simply talking about joined-up thinking, because when issues such as the situation in Tanzania come to light, it seems to fly in the face of the evidence that the Secretary of State just put before me.
	Consideration of what is good or bad for the world's poorest must be at the heart of the Government's foreign affairs policy if the Prime Minister is to make good his promise that Britain will meet its international obligations in full. We cannot go on saying one thing and doing another—I am talking specifically about corruption, in the terms that I used earlier. For the sake of the hundreds of millions of people for whom the millennium goals are still a far away dream, I hope that the Prime Minister—the clunking fist—will, without further delay, turn yet further towards the development cause.

Ann McKechin: I commend the Department for International Development for its work. As a Member of the Select Committee, and having seen its work first-hand on a number of occasions, I feel that we should be proud of the palpable dedication of many of its staff, particularly abroad. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke) for his International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Act 2006, because it helps us to focus our attention on our work on international development, and to hold our Government to account for what they do. That is a strong message to send, not only to people in the UK, but to our partners.
	As a number of speakers have pointed out, and as the Select Committee stressed in its report, we need to concentrate more on the outcomes of our interventions, and not simply on the inputs. Since the Gleneagles summit in 2005, a false argument has sometimes been put forward on quantity of aid versus its quality. For the world's poorest it is not an either/or debate: we need both. As the Prime Minister rightly pointed out in his speech to the United Nations on 31 July regarding the millennium development goal targets, the pace of change is
	"too slow; our direction too uncertain; our vision at risk."
	I shall focus on a few areas where the pace and direction of our interventions, as a bilateral donor and as part of the wider international donor community, needs to change. The first area is gender. Time and again the Select Committee has returned to the topic in its various reports as a matter of concern, and I am happy to say that that view is shared by all my colleagues on the Committee, all of whom, by coincidence, are male. The reason for concern is blindingly obvious. Over 60 per cent. of those in absolute poverty are women, and many of them are young girls, but too often gender in development is treated as an added-on issue, rather than core to the way in which we tackle poverty. In aspects of development such as security or private sector development, the issue of gender is rarely mentioned and when it is, there is a tendency to tack it on at the end or just to say that it is very difficult.
	We need to view gender in the context of basic human rights, rather than merely as an awkward problem. Girls in particular face a raw deal. They face double discrimination due to their gender and their age, and as a result in many societies they remain at the bottom of the social and economic ladder. They face discrimination even before they are born. It is estimated that 100 million girls and women are missing because of the growing practice of female foeticide in some parts of the world. Girls are less likely to be educated, are more likely to suffer malnutrition, and are more at risk of gender-based violence and forced marriages at an early age.
	We need to take a whole-of-life perspective if we are to get to grips with the scale of these problems. DFID has rightly focused attention on schooling and health care, but discrimination takes many forms. Lack of formal birth registration processes entrenches girls' invisibility. Local and national traditions of lower minimum ages of marriage for girls and the use of child domestic workers effectively lock out their voice from the wider community. Lack of equal rights of inheritance and the creation of status offences discriminate against girls in legal systems and entrench their low economic status.
	As an international donor we need to support work that challenges the status quo, creates a space for women's voices to be heard and supports a strong, consistent call for their rights to be upheld. The need for this is never greater than in so-called fragile states. I am aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Mr. Joyce) hopes to speak later on the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where the UK is the largest bilateral donor, but I, too, want to add my voice to the call for us to redouble our efforts in that region.
	Members may have read reports in  The Guardian this Monday about the increase in violence in the eastern DRC in recent months and the shocking statistics in relation to women who live there. Médecins sans Frontières was reported as stating that over 75 per cent. of the rape cases that it dealt with worldwide emanated from this region. We can justly claim that in the DRC rape and sexual slavery have reached epidemic proportions. It is the main form of attack. The many, many stories of absolute barbarity are truly shocking. It is perpetrated by all the various military groups in the region and also by civilians, as society has effectively broken down in many areas after years of the most intense conflict witnessed on this planet. It is believed that 4 million people have been killed since 1998. More than any other conflict, this has become a war against women, yet where is their voice in the current discussions about how we achieve peace?
	I recently received correspondence from the platform of Congolese women in the UK, outlining their concerns at the current crisis and calling on the Government, together with members of the international community, to implement a national action plan based on Security Council resolution 1325, seek to restore security and effective demilitarisation, and start to address the causes of the conflict to ensure that a dangerous vacuum does not emerge again. Most importantly, we need to end the total impunity that exists for serious violations of national and international humanitarian law. I hope that the voices of Congolese women will be raised by our Government consistently, and I should be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister would address these points in his closing remarks today.
	The issue of security was also uppermost in our discussions when the Committee visited Afghanistan two weeks ago. Again, although there is a recognition that Security Council resolution 1325 is important, there appears to be little practical implementation. The Ministry of Women remains weak and largely ineffective.
	It is of deep concern to me that in respect of the women's prisons of Afghanistan, we found countless references to women being imprisoned because they did not want to marry the person chosen by their family, because they ran away from home or because they had sex outside marriage. That is an issue that we will address further in next year's report, but I flag it up today as another example of the challenges that DFID needs to face—and face urgently.
	As we work in fragile states, we often find a dearth of functioning civic society for ordinary working women. When we speak about the need to bolster governance, we also need to see how women's voices can be heard not only at parliamentary level, but at grass-roots level. We need to bolster capacity and representation for women in local councils and allow the space for women's organisations to grow and develop.
	The second issue that I want to raise today is that of environment. It has been the subject of a great deal of debate, and the Government's commitment to the World Bank fund and to the area of research is welcome. Some people airily declare that it is perfectly feasible to plant solar panels and wind turbines in health clinics and schools throughout remote rural communities as a means of combating the problem. However, we need research and policy development to see how to manufacture renewable technology in the regions themselves at sufficiently low cost to be affordable and to have the reliability and easy maintenance required to meet the environments in which they will be located. That is no easy task and, by definition, it means developing a whole range of skills that could be picked up by large numbers of people. I sometimes think that that is more of a challenge than the inventions themselves. We also need to help low-income countries to retain their low-carbon status, while at the same time being able to invest in areas that will achieve greater economic growth. The capacity for such long-term strategic planning is currently low and I believe that the UK and other major donors can contribute significantly to this field.
	There have been concerns that the funding required for adaptation over the next decade will swamp the existing Overseas Development Administration commitments, so we need to consider now the innovative solutions required to bring in this extra finance. In his report, Sir Nicholas Stern estimated that we need an extra 10 per cent. on top of existing estimates for aid requirement. The UK has been a world leader in innovative funding through the international finance facility and UNITAID.
	May I take this opportunity to recommend that Ministers look at the report, launched last week, of the all-party group on debt, aid and trade, of which I am the Chair? The report looked into the possibility of having a sterling stamp duty on all sterling foreign exchange transactions. At a rate of only 0.005 per cent. it would generate £2.4 billion a year. I would like the Government to consider that report and undertake research into whether it could be used as part of a new funding mechanism. As I said, it is not just the quality of aid that is important; we also need more on quantity as well.

Malcolm Bruce: I greatly welcome the opportunity to engage in this debate. In the short time available, I thought that I would comment on some countries in which we have been engaged recently as well as on the general thrust of today's report. I should like to place on the record my thanks to the staff of the International Development Committee for ensuring that the report was available today; that required a degree of effort but has added to the value of our debate.
	We have been concerned with a number of countries in the past year. The Secretary of State referred in his opening statement to Burma and we recently published a report on that country. I want to thank the right hon. Gentleman first for his very prompt response in announcing the doubling of aid and secondly for his indication to the House today that that does not limit the aspirations. After all, we can always talk about money, but the ultimate point is always effectiveness. We all agree that there is a greater capacity for more aid to reach poor people in Burma than has been delivered. We greatly welcome the Secretary of State's commitment to achieve that.
	The Committee was concerned, however, although we understood the reasoning, about the basing of the entire Burma DFID staff in Rangoon. Many of the expatriate organisations supporting the Burmese people in a whole variety of ways are perforce operating out of Thailand. The suggestion that a quarterly meeting with those groups is sufficient and that Thailand is only a plane ride away does not fulfil the need for regular contact. I thus hope that the Secretary of State will think again about whether a permanent DFID presence in Bangkok might still be necessary and justified, as the Committee recommended.
	The Committee visited Pakistan some time ago in the wake of the earthquake. Obviously, more recent events in that country are a considerable cause for concern. Will the Under-Secretary say whether consideration is being given to the way in which aid might be delivered in Pakistan in the changed circumstances? Put simply and starkly, it would be wrong for DFID money to go directly to a President who has suspended the democratic process. The people of Pakistan must not, however, be denied the effective aid that is needed to deal with issues of poverty and development.
	My colleague the hon. Member for Glasgow, North (Ann McKechin) has alluded to the fact that the Committee returned two weeks ago from a week-long visit to Afghanistan, where we had the opportunity to visit not only Government agencies, NGOs and our representatives in Kabul, but the field around Kabul—part of the Committee went to Helmand and part of it to Mazar-e-Sharif—to get some idea of the scale and diversity of the challenges facing all the agencies in Afghanistan, from the Government to the people and the international community. The Committee will produce a detailed report, but I do not think that I am anticipating that unreasonably by saying that, difficult and challenging as the situation is, we all recognise that we should be in Afghanistan and that it is a long-term commitment. It is a poor country and our objective must be to give it a chance to develop. The balance between military and civil development activity will probably need to be reassessed, but we will write shortly to the Secretary of State with our interim views, and then publish a detailed report in the new year.
	The Committee remains somewhat unhappy about the Government's policy towards the Palestinian occupied territories. Some of that is history, on which it is probably not appropriate to dwell too long. A huge opportunity was missed, however, when there was a Government of national unity, to provide some kind of continuing support. The Palestinian community is now very divided, and the international community has taken sides, supporting one half and isolating the other. Let me make it absolutely clear that I hold no brief whatever for Hamas, but it was elected by the Palestinian people. If we are trying to build a viable Palestinian state, there is a danger of being part of the process of increasing the wedge and division within and among the Palestinian people.

Malcolm Bruce: I am grateful for that. Perhaps this is a subject for a another debate, but I remain concerned that, as things stand, the international community has added to, rather than solved, the problems of the people of Palestine.
	Having made those specific comments about countries where we have a direct engagement, one positive story was our visit to Vietnam in the summer. The Committee was impressed by DFID's contribution and the value that it added to the programme there. Given that we are contributing £50 million a year—a substantial amount—to a country in which we do not have a long-standing record, part of the reason for the visit was to determine whether we were adding value that other donors could not provide. We were persuaded that we were doing that. It is worth placing on the record that Vietnam has the look of a success story in development terms: it has every prospect of making the transition from a low-income country to a middle-income country in short order.
	That brings me on to the wider issues of how DFID can deliver effectively the 0.7 per cent., to reach the largest number of poor people in the largest number of countries. The right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke) rightly made much of our collective aspiration to reach that target. As our report stated, however, simply saying that we will spend more money to achieve an aspiration is, as I am sure that the Secretary of State will acknowledge, unique to his Department. If any other Minister were to talk in such terms, he or she would almost certainly have his or her knuckles rapped by both the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for saying "What I want to know is not how much money you will spend, but what you are going to achieve—what the outcomes will be." I am not suggesting that DFID does not concern itself with outcomes, but I think it reasonable to say that in these unique circumstances it is important for us to persuade the British taxpayer not just that we are meeting United Nations aspirations, but that we are determined to ensure that the money is spent as effectively as possible to deliver poverty reduction.
	Although the Committee has made it clear that it understands and accepts the staffing constraints, we are concerned about what the implications may be, and there may come a time when we take a different view. Providing budget support, advice and the detailed range of practical measures that is required is people-intensive. In evidence to the Committee, DFID staff have acknowledged that the present constraints may lead to consequences that are not driven by policy: we may be forced to invest more than we would otherwise have invested in multilateral agencies over which we have less direct control, give more to consultants than would otherwise be appropriate, or reduce the number and range of programmes that we commit to and the number of countries in which we operate. If that happened, the Committee would want to think again about whether the Department should be under such constraints.

Chris McCafferty: I want to begin by congratulating the previous and current Secretaries of State for International Development, and indeed the Prime Minister, on the immense progress made on debt relief and poverty eradication through pro-poor policies and increased overseas development assistance.
	I especially welcome the additional £100 million to United Nations Population Fund announced at the recent Women Deliver conference. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke) on successfully promoting the International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Bill, which makes an important requirement: that the Secretary of State report annually on expenditure and on the breakdown of international aid and, in particular, on the progress towards the target of 0.7 per cent. of gross national income. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North (Ann McKechin) that that sends a strong message of our commitment, as well as setting a good example.
	I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House agree that among the major causes of poverty in developing countries are poor maternal and child health, the status of women and HIV/AIDS. It is widely recognised that reproductive illness and unintended pregnancies detract from economic development, whether by weakening or killing adults, by disrupting or cutting short the lives of their children or by placing heavy financial burdens on their families.
	Sexual and reproductive health and rights also deal with poverty and development in a much wider context. The ability to exercise the rights and freedoms of choice brings self-determination, which in turn has a direct impact on an individual's ability to emerge from poverty. Poor reproductive health accounts for over 40 per cent of diseases suffered by women. One in 20 women in Africa die from pregnancy-related causes. Unsafe abortion accounts for 13 per cent. of maternal deaths.
	Fertility is highest in the poorest countries as well as among the poorest people in the developing world. It should be no surprise that countries with the highest levels of unmet need for family planning and reproductive health services have not only the highest maternal mortality but the highest population growths. According to the environmental sustainability task force, unmet family planning and sexual and reproductive health needs, together with health education and gender equality issues, must be addressed with policies and programmes that slow population growth and realise synergistic improvements.
	At a national level, fertility reduction and improved maternal health may enable accelerated social and economic development. Conversely, the absence of sexual and reproductive health and rights undermines social and economic development. Yet it is well known that if all the available condoms in Africa were evenly distributed, each man in Africa would receive only three or four per year. There is a huge gap between the demand for condoms and other contraceptives and the funding available. The recent report on population growth and its impact on the millennium development goals by the all-party group on population, development and reproductive health concludes that the MDGs are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve with current levels of population growth in the least developed countries and regions.
	Gender equality is a great catalyst for development. Empowering people to exercise their rights over fertility and to choose the number of, and spacing between, their children is a powerful tool in the fight to reduce poverty. The gender and education taskforce has identified seven priorities for action to achieve gender equality. One of them is ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health and rights.
	One African in two is under the age of 20. More than 40 million of Africa's children are not in school, and two thirds of them are girls. Families with fewer children spaced further apart can invest much more in each child's education. Children in large families are likely to have reduced health care, and unwanted children are much more likely to die than wanted ones. When mothers live, their children are much more likely to live. When mothers are healthy, their children have a much better chance of being, and staying, healthy.
	I am sure that all Members would agree that the empowerment of women is a development end in itself. Removing the obstacles to women exercising economic and political power is also one of the most important ways to end poverty. Reproductive health is part of an essential package of health care and education. It is a means to the goal of women's empowerment, but it is also a basic human right.
	Our approach to HIV/AIDS should be based on an integrated model of sexual and reproductive health care to reduce maternal mortality and to combat HIV and AIDS. The millennium project's HIV taskforce has stated:
	"The fight against HIV/AIDS, and the broader struggle for reproductive health, should be mutually reinforcing."
	It follows that national Governments should incorporate universal access to reproductive and sexual health services and information as an integral part of their AIDS responses.
	Last month, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the text of the new millennium development target on universal access to reproductive health and related indicators under MDG 5. That outcome is a huge success for millions of women, men and young people throughout the world, but we must ensure that the new target is fully integrated into the future implementation and monitoring of the MDGs. I hope the Minister will be able to tell the House how DFID will ensure that recipient Governments incorporate the new target and indicators within their national development plans.
	DFID bilateral expenditure on sexual and reproductive health and rights is a little difficult to track; that is, in part, due to budget support and SWAps—sector-wide approaches. In terms of general budget support, DFID estimates that 5 per cent. of the budget will be spent on HIV and AIDS. However, there is no similar sexual and reproductive health estimate. Is DFID planning to make an estimate of what percentage of general budget support will be spent on sexual and reproductive health and rights—and if not, why not?
	Details of DFID's funding to the UNFPA and other sexual and reproductive health organisations, such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Marie Stopes International and Interact Worldwide, are readily available, and the additional £100 million over five years to UNFPA will help to prevent many unwanted pregnancies and make childbirth much safer. That money will enable UNFPA to provide support to Governments in Africa and south Asia, and to provide more condoms, contraceptive pills and advice on better sexual health to many poor women, girls and men. I understand that the final stages of the five-year agreement between DFID and the IPPF will be completed this week.
	DFID is in the process of updating its HIV/AIDS strategy, which I hope will further strengthen the links between sexual and reproductive health and rights and HIV/AIDS. I am looking for reassurances from the Minister that if a new spending target is agreed for HIV/AIDS, a target for sexual and reproductive health and rights will also be agreed. DFID's 2006-07 direct bilateral expenditure targeting reproductive health—some £24.1 million—is not insignificant, but it is rather discouraging compared with the direct bilateral expenditure targeting HIV/AIDS, which is £104.2 million. Perhaps a spending target on both HIV/AIDS and sexual and reproductive health and rights would ensure equilibrium and increased support for system strengthening.
	In finishing, I want to remind the House that the hardest millennium development goal to reach is MDG 5—

James Duddridge: I congratulate the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Chris McCafferty), who I am sure would have a lot more to say if time permitted. I was particularly impressed with her comments on millennium development goals 4 and 5, and I look forward to the Minister's response.
	I am passionate about international development largely through an accident of history. I was appointed to a job in Africa in the early 1990s and stayed in several different African countries for a number of years. I also have the privilege of serving on the International Development Committee. Despite an increase in the number of postcard campaigns, the general public still do not connect with international development. I do not want to appear to be trivialising this debate, but recent programmes such as "Long Way Down" with Ewan McGregor present a more human view of Africa. All too often, people think back to the 1980s and to images of a starving, pot-bellied Ethiopian, rather than seeing countries and a continent that are much more entrepreneurial now, and which have a lot stronger future and will develop and grow over time. Aid and the good work that DFID does are really only a precursor to countries standing on their own two feet.
	All too often, politicians have to deal with very big numbers and £6 billion is a mind-bogglingly big number, but the figure that focuses my attention is that of 250,000. This June, I went to Rwanda with Christian Aid and Oxfam. As I looked out across what appeared to be a normal, average African capital city—I do not mean that in a pejorative sense—I was standing on the site of what was a mass grave of 250,000 people. That highlights graphically the need for that £6 billion and for a commitment to the figure of 0.7 per cent. of gross national income, on which there is now a strong cross-party consensus.
	Now that we have that consensus, we need to move away from talking about big numbers. As the Select Committee said, we need to go beyond talking about inputs and outputs in the financial sense, and talk about outcomes. I am glad that the Secretary of State talked about inputs in the sense of meeting the Gleneagles targets in Africa, but we need to go beyond that. We need to go beyond visits to other countries by the Select Committee and saying, "Look—this is what DFID money has done; it is has provided this well and this school." We need to go beyond outputs and to look toward the long-term outcomes for such countries.
	I am critical of the fact that DFID and the Foreign Office look at the short and medium term in such countries, rather than at the long term and the generation of growth. I must admit that when Baroness Vadera was appointed to her role, I was a little sceptical, given press reports of her involvement in the transport and rail sectors. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) read out a very interesting quotation that filled me with optimism. If that is the direction that the Government are taking, I have a little more cause for optimism that I did before I entered the Chamber.
	I turn to the structure and performance of DFID. The previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Hilary Benn), was fabulous in the role, and I also have great respect for the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas). When the new Secretary of State came on board, I was concerned, although I was pleased that he had the Prime Minister's ear. Now that we have moved beyond the period of a possible general election, DFID is getting the singular focus that it needs and deserves from the Secretary of State.
	I am pleased to hear that the Secretary of State meets his counterparts in the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence, without civil servants, on a regular basis. That is essential for international development. We cannot go back to the bad old days when the Foreign Office was not even talking to DFID at Secretary of State level. The relationship between those two Departments is essential, as is the relationship with the Ministry of Defence, which the Select Committee saw in Afghanistan.
	On the role of business in development, it is essential that aid is seen only as short term, and we need a greater degree of focus. While DFID as an independent Department is right in giving that greater focus, greater integration with other Departments is needed to encourage business. Despite what Ministers have said, I am disappointed about the international progress on economic partnership agreements and the slow progress on the Doha round. This is not the western world saying that it believes in free trade; all too often it is the Americans who do not deliver and who are incredibly protectionist. In fact, some sources indicate that subsidies provided to western farmers cancel out entirely the aid budget from elsewhere around the world. That is a truly shocking comparison. While we say that we care and that we are giving money, we are effectively taking it away with another hand.
	I commend the work of a number of non-governmental organisations, particularly management accounting for non-governmental organisations—MANGO. All too often, we look at NGOs that provide direct support, but sometimes the nitty-gritty of supply-chain management is much more important. It is slightly less sexy than putting a doctor in-country, and does not provide as good a photograph as a retired bank manager or retired accountant working in Malawi or Ethiopia, but it can be incredibly effective.

Brooks Newmark: I appreciate that comment. Does my hon. Friend recognise the good works of groups such as the Portland Trust, which supports small businesses through micro-finance? Does he acknowledge the important role that the voluntary sector plays in such provision to support developing communities?

James Duddridge: I fully support that. Indeed, I would extend such an approach and encourage the Secretary of State to examine ways of providing assistance and tax arrangements that make it easier for business people and civil servants to take a career break and spend a year, or slightly longer, volunteering. I am talking not just about the typical periods of volunteering at the beginning and end of people's careers, but about people sharing their unique experiences in the middle of their careers.
	Aid is a widely abused term. It covers the short-term and humanitarian aid, which addresses basic survival, and the medium-term aid of building basic infrastructure and institutions. One area where DFID does not perform well is long-term aid—the hand-holding of democracies and of basic institutions. All too often we say to countries, "Tick your boxes. You have got your elections, and some form of democracy and constitution. You can get on with it now that you have the basic infrastructure to continue developing and growing." All too often, it is not that simple.
	Moreover, we have still not done enough on the Paris declaration on aid. Professor Mick Moore, a fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, has written:
	"The average bilateral aid donor gives aid to more than a hundred countries, and therefore distributes it in tiny scattered packets. Would you entrust your business to a lawyer known to be handling a hundred cases in any one week?"
	A strong case can be made that we should specialise, so that we can do more with fewer countries. In theory, the EU should be good at that but, in reality, it is probably one of the least co-ordinated or efficient donors. The UK and other international donors are directing more money to poor countries, but the EU, under the auspices of aid, is spending more on middle-income nations. The EU's aid budget was not signed off this week—again—so the UK, through the good offices of DFID, needs to do more. The Department is widely praised for its expertise in-country, and it is farcical for our Government to impose a manpower restriction on it simply because of a head count requirement dreamed up by some Treasury bean-counter or politician.
	That is wholly inappropriate but, even so, the DFID motto of "doing more with less" is somewhat disingenuous. The Department is trying to do more with more—more outcomes and outputs achieved through more inputs of money, but with fewer staff at head office.

James Duddridge: I am grateful to be able to clarify that I am not arguing for extra manpower. I am simply saying that it should be a possibility, given that the overall administrative costs of delivering good outcomes are likely to increase. For instance, Paul Collier has said that our overall administration costs will rise as we put more money into difficult development schemes. I do not want DFID to be constrained unnecessarily by imposing budgetary support requirements or making it resort to multilateral organisations, when it could employ extra people. One option would be to take on staff from other agencies, but I should much prefer European countries to be able to pool resources in-country.
	For example, when the Select Committee visited Ethiopia we found that the European agencies represented there could not say how much the EU as a whole was spending on the development of water resources. All the agencies were supposed to share that task, but each one was willing to talk only about its individual responsibilities.
	I turn now to the question of conflict. What should happen after conflicts have ended is talked about a lot in development circles, and DFID's post-conflict resolution unit is top notch. I have been very impressed with the members of that unit whom I have met, but the unit's work is rather like locking the stable door after the horse has bolted. How about setting up a pre-conflict unit, and placing greater focus on conflicts as they take place? A pre-conflict unit would make it easier to spot which countries are at risk, and enable assistance to be spread more widely. It would also mean that interventions to try to undo the damage being done would not have to be made while a conflict was ongoing, as has happened with the provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan.

Eric Joyce: I am almost reluctant to give credit to Opposition Members, but those who have contributed to the debate have made some good points.
	I want to concentrate on the eastern Congo region. Members of the all-party group on the Great Lakes often visit central Africa, including all parts of the Congo, the Great Lakes, Rwanda, Burundi and northern Uganda. I should like to make a few points about the situation in eastern Congo. The Minister may be able to make a few comments on it and in particular tell us what comments he may be able to make at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Uganda.
	Without delivering a history lesson—many hon. Members know more about it than me—eastern Congo is a crucible of activity that has been affected by what has happened in the surrounding countries, notably the Rwandan genocide in 1994. More recently, we have had an election in eastern Congo. The DRC Government do not have the capacity at this stage—far from it—to ensure that their writ is applied across the Congo. There is a particular difficulty with a general called Laurent Nkunda, who was supposed to have integrated into the DRC army, but has chosen not to. About 360,000 people by some estimates have been displaced by the current difficulties in northern Kivu. Charles Murigande, the Rwandan Foreign Minister, has rightly drawn attention to the fact that there are issues for the Tutsis across in the east, and Nkunda sees himself as their guardian angel. There are issues that we should recognise in that department, notwithstanding the importance of recognising the right of the—remarkably, in many ways—democratically elected Government in the DRC to ensure that their writ runs. General Nkunda has chosen for the moment to set himself up as a rival power in the land. He has the kit and the people to enable him to do that. I understand—the Minister may have other news—that there is a possibility that Nkunda might be encouraged to take a sabbatical, if I can put it that way, and go off perhaps to South Africa for a year or two so that his absence could enable a solution to be reached with his followers. That is a major issue.
	I know that the Government are not in a position to wave a magic wand and sort it out, but helpful comments can be made by the UK Government. Certainly, the Governments of the region listen. I guess that it is also important to reflect on the relationship between DFID and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence. That was mentioned earlier. The man in the news at the moment, Lord Malloch-Brown, has been in the news for all sorts of reasons, but he is seized of the issue in eastern Congo. We had a meeting with him just last week. His expertise in international development, as applied through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, is a positive benefit. Indeed, Baroness Vadera was in eastern Congo only last month.
	Another issue for eastern Congo security is a chap called Joseph Kony, who runs a brutal, horrid organisation called the Lord's Resistance Army. His organisation has effectively been displaced from northern Uganda by President Museveni, but it remains a considerable problem. I have met, and many colleagues here no doubt have met, members of the Achole people, who come to the Commons from time to time to lobby. They live in northern Uganda and have benefited from a ceasefire that has applied there for some time. They are the ones who would suffer most if that ceasefire were to cease. It is important that the right messages are sent to President Museveni at CHOGM.
	There are things that we can do to move towards resolving the situation, not least dealing with the five International Criminal Court indictees. One is dead and one may recently have become dead. It seems that Vincent Otti, the second in command of the Lord's Resistance Army, may have been killed a couple of weeks ago. There is some dispute. Joseph Kony is certainly disputing it. Perhaps that is one way to solve the problem of the indictees. They are perhaps down to three; perhaps they could sort the problem out for themselves.
	In the meantime, the fact is that the writ of the ICC has to run. There can be no question of cancelling indictments, but it may well be that some local justice solution within Uganda, which President Museveni is keener to find now, can be arrived at. Of course it has to be up to the local parties, but there is a desperate need to sort the situation out. It overspills into eastern Congo.
	On security, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North (Ann McKechin) mentioned gender and violence against women in the eastern Congo, which is of course the most hideous thing—more hideous than anyone can really imagine without experiencing it. DFID funds a hospital called the Panzi hospital, which many hon. Members have visited, which exclusively treats the female victims of violence in the eastern Congo. It is a marvellous institution and a good example of an outcome on the ground that is the result of considerable investment by DFID, and the people there certainly benefit enormously from it.
	The one other issue that I want to mention briefly is transparency. I am an enormous fan of any country that wants to put many billions into African economies, particularly into what we might call more viable economies, such as Rwanda's—the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge) mentioned Kigali and he has more expertise then me—which is beginning to develop industries such as the communications industry. One can imagine investment going into those industries and delivering returns in due course, which must be the ultimate objective of aid. The Chinese Government are investing in a big way throughout the African continent. They are giving a loan of $5 billion to the Congolese Government, which is very welcome. Right hon. and hon. Members will know that some of that aid will return to China, because the recipients will use Chinese labour and Chinese materials, but that is a moot point. We should see the glass as half full rather than half empty.
	I have been in contact with a number of mining and other companies over the past few years that do a lot of business in Africa, although not necessarily in the DRC at this stage, because of the security situation. Large international corporations increasingly have a responsible approach to dealing with countries in Africa, not least because if they did not have sensible corporate social responsibility strategies, they would suffer in public affairs terms, they would not do as much business and their share prices would fall.
	However, although I welcome without hesitation the large investment that the Chinese Government are making—I understand that the UK Government are in close liaison with them about the good work that they are doing in Africa—a concern remains, justifiably or otherwise, that some of China's large-scale investment is not of the most transparent nature. Hon. Members have talked today about DFID's correct instinct to examine outcomes and measure outputs, but we can see the effects that we are having. We have a considerable number of devices to ensure that we achieve a fair degree of transparency and that the money does not go to all the wrong places, like it used to. Presidents Kabila and Kagame are a new breed; they are not the same as the Mobutus of old. At the same time, if there is a lack of transparency in the large-scale aid packages going to developing countries such as the DRC, the whole system is naturally brought into question in the public mind.
	To conclude, although we all recognise a considerable commitment among our constituents to development aid, it seems to me—I could well be wrong; I am wrong on lots of things—that the reality is that there is no enormous political benefit to be had from ramping up DFID expenditure. We do it, and we are supported by the Opposition, because we think that it is the right thing to do. Broadly speaking, my constituents support it, but they will also say that charity begins at home. It is therefore important that ramping up DFID expenditure to at least 0.7 per cent. is seen as exactly the right thing to do, regardless of who is in power.

Andrew Selous: I begin by paying tribute to the numerous groups in my constituency that regularly beat a path to my surgery door to impress upon me the need to go further and faster in matters of international development. It is a source of pride to me that the largest town in my constituency, Leighton Buzzard, recently became a Fairtrade town. I am pleased to have played a small part in helping to achieve that status. I should also like to pay tribute to groups such as Dunstable churches together and the St. Mary's justice and peace group, who have come to see me about these issues on a regular basis in recent years. I have not always agreed with their every policy proposal, but I am in complete agreement on the objective that we all share, namely the reduction of global poverty.
	This afternoon, I want to be quite laser-like in focusing on the worldwide cotton industry. I want to do that because 99 per cent. of the world's cotton farmers are smallholders based in the countryside in the poor, developing world. Cotton still provides about half of the world's fibre requirements, and it is an enormous pity that the United States last year provided some $4 billion in subsidies to its own cotton producers, the result of which was severely to restrict access to the US market for cotton growers in the developing world and significantly to push down the global price of cotton. This has had a devastating impact on cotton growers in those countries.
	There are other, more serious, issues that I want to draw to the attention of the House today. The next one is that of forced child labour in the production of cotton. It is particularly poignant that we should focus on that subject today, given that this year we are celebrating the 200th anniversary of Wilberforce's abolition of the African slave trade. In Andhra Pradesh in India, about 100,000 children are documented as having been forced to work for up to 13 hours a day for no more than 50 US cents a day. In west Africa, where 40 per cent. of the value of the exports relates to cotton, there is evidence of considerable child trafficking in relation to the picking of cotton.
	In Uzbekistan, about which I am particularly concerned, there are reports that between 200,000 and 450,000 children, many as young as seven, are being forcibly taken out of schools, bussed into the cotton growing areas, made to sleep on mattresses, often at the side of the road, and forced to pick cotton, for which they are paid no more than 2p a kilo. I am not making this up; I have seen evidence of it with my own eyes. Hon. Members might have watched the BBC "Newsnight" report on 30 October. I pay tribute to the courageous journalist who went into Uzbekistan under cover. I am not sure whether the Under-Secretary saw it.

Andrew Selous: I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend who has raised a valid point that I hope will not be lost on DFID. In international development, I hope we are concerned with poor people all over the world, whatever their situation; just because there are some extremely rich people in the Uzbek Government, due to their oil assets, we should not lose sight of the rural poor and the children who are forced to pick cotton, as I described earlier.
	The solution lies not just in the trading policies of Governments, or with the EU or the United Nations; it lies with us as individuals, too. I was delighted when a little while ago my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) wrote to every Conservative Member encouraging us to use fair trade products, such as tea and coffee, in our offices. I already do so in my offices in my constituency and the Commons and in my home.
	We tend to think of fair trade only in terms of products such as tea, coffee, bananas and chocolate, but there is an embryonic market in fair trade cotton. It is less than 1 per cent. of the entire UK cotton market at present, but the fair trade organisation is optimistic because the figure is rising fast. I understand that fair trade coffee is 7 per cent. of the total UK market, so there is clearly more that can be done.
	If people were fully aware of the way that cotton is produced and of the consequences for those who pick it, there would be more concern to put pressure on suppliers. Overall, the consumer is king, so it would be a powerful way to do something about the appalling conditions that I described.
	In international development terms, it is true that a sustainable environmental policy is key to sustainable economic development. As I said in an intervention earlier, cotton is an extremely thirsty crop, and the cotton industry in Uzbekistan has brought about one of the world's greatest environmental disasters—the virtual drying up of the Aral sea, which is only 15 per cent. of its former size. That has had a devastating impact on people and industries in the surrounding area. We need the turquoise revolution to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) referred in his report; we should use harvested rainwater and drip-fed irrigation to grow more drought-resistant and faster-maturing crop varieties that are suitable for semi-arid areas.
	All over the world, a tremendous amount of pesticide is required to grow cotton. That matters; figures show that about 20,000 people in the developing world die every year from the $2 billion of pesticide used to grow cotton. About 1 million people require hospitalisation as a result of pesticide use, and there are perhaps up to 5 million cases of people's health being adversely affected.
	I have seen a small piece of good news in the International Development Committee's report, which says that DFID was involved in a project in India that brought about half the amount of pesticide use, while leading to an increase in production—so some hope there. However, some of the chemicals used are extremely strong. Aldicarb is the second most common cotton pesticide. It is, in fact, a powerful nerve agent and a teaspoonful would be enough to kill an adult. In 1995, in Alabama, endosulfan was responsible for killing about 250,000 fish when it got into the local freshwater supply.
	The use of chemicals does not stop there. Coming back to the point made by the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) in her intervention on me, there is an issue with the further use of chemicals in the rotor spinning machines that are used to turn cotton into yarn that can be used for material. Many extra chemicals, such as formaldehyde, are used to turn cotton into a soft enough material, and the organic cotton campaign is keen to do something about that issue.
	I should be grateful to the Minister if he particularly addressed in his response what the UK Government intend to do in respect of our trading relationships in the EU and the action that the ILO and the UN are taking to ensure that we are not all complicit in the use of child labour in the clothes that we wear.

Virendra Sharma: I rise to speak in this debate immensely proud of the record of this Labour Government in international development. As a new Member, my political philosophy and political motivation have always been to fight against injustice and poverty wherever they are found throughout the world. I therefore feel a very personal commitment to support the work of DFID and the Government in this respect. Having been born in and lived my early life in India, I know first hand the challenges that poverty and the lack of economic development bring.
	I want to take this opportunity to thank and congratulate the Government on their achievements over the past 10 years. They have taken the lead in international efforts to tackle global poverty, with the historic aid package agreed at Gleneagles being of huge significance, following the high-profile Make Poverty History campaign. The setting up of the international finance facility for immunisation, which could help save 10 million lives by 2015, is another tangible achievement. The recent comprehensive spending review demonstrated that the Labour Government are delivering on their overseas aid promises and that we are on course to deliver the UN gold standard of 0.7 per cent. of gross national income to be spent on overseas development assistance by 2013. By 2010, this Labour Government will have trebled the aid budget in real terms since 1997, by increasing aid from £2.1 billion in 1997 to £7.93 billion in 2010.
	DFID is internationally recognised as the world's leading development organisation and has played a key role in progress on the millennium development goals. It has assisted in writing off 100 per cent. of the debt owed by the world's most heavily indebted countries, and DFID's programmes have contributed to significant results on the ground, by lifting 3 million people permanently out of poverty each year.
	I should also like to congratulate the Government on their work in Africa, which the Secretary of State mentioned in his opening remarks. Through its global leadership, the UK has put the issue of Africa centre stage. Under the UK's presidency, the G8 agreed an increase in aid of $50 billion a year by 2010, 100 per cent. debt cancellation, and free education for all. Obviously, the challenge now is for all G8 partners to fulfil those commitments and get Africa back on track to meet the millennium development goals. The UK has now prioritised Africa in its development aid and DFID aid to Africa is significant and growing. That is the right decision, and I welcome it.
	As a Member who represents a constituency in which about 50 per cent. of the constituents were either born in the Indian subcontinent, or have parents or grandparents from there, I—like my constituents—am particularly interested in the DFID work in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Again, I congratulate the Secretary of State and the Department on the fantastic work that has been done in the last decade in these areas.
	In Bangladesh, DFID's aid contributes to more than 1,300 people escaping from poverty every day. The £100 million committed to the Bangladesh primary education programme will give 17 million children a year a good quality primary schooling. DFID is also providing clean water to 7.5 million people in Bangladesh and almost 2 million people in India. In health spending, DFID is financing more than 20 per cent.—£100 million—of the Indian national polio vaccination campaign. In India, the UK is helping girls go to school through support for a midday meal scheme, free textbooks, free notebooks and pencils, and, more recently, free school uniforms for girls.
	Following the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, which killed 73,500 people, many of whom—because of poorly constructed schools—were children, the UK committed 10 per cent. of the £53 million humanitarian response budget to longer-term disaster risk reduction, which has helped to strengthen early warning systems and to support Governments in establishing and monitoring effective building codes. I applaud all those efforts and initiatives—and others that I have not mentioned.
	I would like to make a couple of cautionary points, which I know the Government are aware of and working on. First, on human rights, it is vital that recipient Governments are under no illusions about the need to meet their responsibilities in relation to the human rights and good governance criteria that are part of development agreements with the UK. I am referring to Pakistan and Burma. The balance is tough to get right—in terms of withdrawing development assistance from recipient Governments who transgress in this regard, without removing support and thus harming the very poorest people in those countries—but I know that the Government are very sensitive to these challenges.
	Secondly, it is vital that all development projects look to the long term and endeavour to support independence and self-sufficiency in the recipient nations, Governments and people.
	Finally, from my own experience, I would like to comment on the targeting of aid. In India, there are some areas that are perceived as being affluent, but which still contain severe pockets of deprivation. In my own state of Punjab, there are still areas where significant work needs to be done to provide clean water, improved education and agricultural reforms. I hope that the Secretary of State and the Department will look into this matter and I commit myself to work closely with the Department, using my personal knowledge and contacts to assist in targeting resources to the poor areas.
	It is important that DFID has close working relationships with groups and people in the UK who are originally from the Indian subcontinent, so that it can engage their support and knowledge, and so that we can all fight together against the evils of society on the subcontinent. There are economic growths there, but we need to consider the social aspects of society, particularly in India. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North (Ann McKechin) mentioned gender problems; there are the issues of child labour, forced marriages and poor education for women to consider. It is our responsibility to look into those issues, to support projects, and to work closely with groups in this country that are working independently from the Indian subcontinent. We must work together to eliminate those problems. Finally, I commend the work of the Secretary of State and the Department to the House, and pledge my wholehearted support to their efforts to eradicate injustice and poverty throughout the world.

Tony Baldry: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Sharma). His predecessor, Piara Khabra, was a member of the Select Committee on International Development in the last Parliament. Piara was always one of the most assiduous members of the Committee, and often asked the most pertinent questions when we travelled overseas.
	The hon. Gentleman made an interesting point about India; it will soon be a middle-income country, but as we all know from travelling through India, there are huge areas of deep poverty. The issue of how best to respond to India in the coming years will be quite a challenge for DFID and other donors. At the moment, DFID supports four development programmes in four states. It will be interesting to see how we all respond to an ever growing number of very poor people in what are technically middle-income countries.
	It is DFID's 10th anniversary; I am not sure whether there has been a party to which we were not invited. It is worth taking stock. DFID and the Government deserve to be congratulated on what DFID has achieved in the past 10 years. If one reads Alastair Campbell's diaries—compulsive bedtime reading for most of us—it is clear that it was thought reasonably risky to set up DFID, and to make the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) the first Secretary of State. Actually, those of us who worked with her think that she did incredibly well, and it is a pity that although she is still a member of the House, she rarely contributes to our debates. She managed to get DFID respected in Whitehall as a lead, main Department, pari passu with other Departments in Whitewall.
	It is much to Tony Blair's credit that he achieved so much in the build up to, and at, Gleneagles. It is to the current Prime Minister's credit that, following the comprehensive spending review, DFID is projected to spend almost £8 billion annually in the developing world—a phenomenal achievement. There is now consensus in the House on 0.7 per cent. of gross domestic income going toward development assistance, and on the timetable for that; that, too, is a great achievement.
	Frustrations in the past 10 years include the failure on trade policy. The World Trade Organisation negotiations failed at Hong Kong. In fact, they failed so badly that no WTO ministerial conference has been convened on Doha since 2005, notwithstanding the obligation for a ministerial conference every two years. The achievements in the past 10 years are therefore tempered by some frustration.
	There are several reasons why the commitments made at Gleneagles may be squandered. The first two are the responsibility of developing countries, especially in Africa. The first is good governance, a theme to which we keep returning. It slightly does one's head in, really. We have gone through various initiatives such as the New Partnership for Africa's Development. The whole point of NEPAD was that there should be peer pressure to try to encourage countries to have good governance. But while Zimbabwe continues to disintegrate into an abyss of misery and chaos, with countries around Zimbabwe standing silent, it is difficult to see what impact NEPAD is having. We must continue to champion the need for good governance, particularly in Africa.

Tony Baldry: There is a whole speech to be made on what we do about the responsibility to protect. As we have seen in the case of Darfur, it often comes down to the difficulty of finding peacekeepers, peace monitors, lift capacity and so on. It is frustrating that we are no further forward on Darfur than we were a year ago. Indeed, things are getting worse.
	Under the NEPAD agreement, there is a responsibility on African countries to bring peer pressure. That was part of the deal, and we would give greater development assistance. However, the problems are not just in Africa. There are real concerns about what is happening in Pakistan.
	We in Banbury are building a secondary school in the earthquake-stricken area of Kashmir, and not long ago I went with leading members of the Kashmiri community in Banbury to meet the head of the education department in Islamabad. We were talking about madrassahs, and he made the point that because so many parents in Pakistan are so poor and cannot get their children to school because the schools do not exist, sending them to madrassahs is better than nothing.
	If we do not invest in literacy in countries such as Pakistan, we will obviously create problems for the future, but if Pakistan continues to undermine democracy there is no incentive for foreign direct investment into Pakistan. Sorting out conflict is therefore as important as sorting out good governance.
	Another set of threats to delivery of the Gleneagles aims are failures on the part of donors—not the UK Government, but on aid commitments Italy, for example, is woefully off target. Since 2005 overall overseas development aid through the DAC—Development Assistance Committee—system, has marginally but astonishingly gone down. We should ensure that countries that make great commitments at summits such as Gleneagles deliver on them.
	There is a consensus about the need to secure a genuine pro-poor trade deal at the World Trade Organisation. As I have repeatedly said during the debate, we need to think about what to do about middle income countries. The benefits of reducing tariffs and liberalising rules of origin would be phenomenal. According to Oxfam, just a 1 per cent. increase in Africa's share of world trade would generate the equivalent of seven times the aid that Africa receives—just a 1 per cent. increase in Africa's share.
	We must make sure that in the aid system there is accountability to both taxpayers and developing countries. This annual debate is bound to include discussion about the machinery of government. In the debate on Burma a little while ago, I raised with the Secretary of State the issue of budget support. The committee that the Secretary of State announced today is fine. It is an interesting step in the right direction, but it is slightly circular to have a committee to evaluate whether DFID's evaluation of its own aid programme is of value. What is needed is some process whereby the outcomes of DFID's programmes are measured and evaluated.
	The time limit in the debate does not allow me to set that out, but I am happy to write to the Secretary of State. Since his castigation of me during the Burma speech, I have been doing quite a lot of research, and I could bore the House to tears with comments by the former Secretary of State and so on. When it came to offering direct budget support to countries such as Uganda and Ethiopia, all that happened was that DFID officials had to monitor the Government's concern for how the money was spent. If, however, one is to spend money through multilateral agencies or project support, one needs a completely different mix of officials within DFID. All the officials I ever met in DFID were very high calibre: the Department probably has more fast-stream officials in Whitehall than practically any other Department, which is very good news, but one requires a different mix of them.
	The constituency of people contributing to debate in the House is a constituency within Parliament as a whole. Colleagues in Westminster and the wider world in our constituencies are important in persuading the country and our constituents that investing in overseas development is worth doing. It must be possible to reach some consensus about how outcomes of DFID programmes can be measured and evaluated. If DFID could achieve that, we would not run into difficulties down the line, with people saying that money was wasted on this or that development programme, as we could have demonstrated that aid and assisting people works.
	My final point is that we need to place more emphasis on jobs and enterprise in developing countries. Whenever one goes overseas—I know that members of the Select Committee, chaired by the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), often go overseas—the question is always where the jobs are going to come from. As the Secretary of State said, we need to think about how we can help with enterprise and development business. He told us about the Department's agricultural initiatives, which are crucial and worthwhile.
	On DFID's 10th anniversary—I hope that at some stage we will have the opportunity to present the Department with a birthday cake, which it deserves—there remain some areas of concern, not least how we are going to measure outcomes in the future.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: It is a huge privilege to wind up the debate for the Opposition. It has been a sober and highly constructive debate. I think it a great pity that the public do not see more such examples of the House's work, rather than the more flamboyant occasions.
	We have heard 13 excellent speeches, and I hope that Members will show me some forbearance if I do not mention them all. The Secretary of State gave us two particularly good pieces of news in what was a very good speech. First, he confirmed that his Department was giving an extra £100 million to the United Nations Population Fund, which I am sure the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Chris McCafferty) was very pleased to hear. As the hon. Lady will know but others may not recall, I am going back to my roots: I used to be chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on population, development and reproductive health, a position in which she succeeded me. She mentioned her excellent report, and the devastating effect of problems of this kind on women in Africa, producing the horrific statistic that one woman in 20 dies from maternity-related problems. The group dealt with precisely the same issues when I was its chairman, and it is sad that there has been so little improvement in the intervening period.
	The other good news in the Secretary of State's speech was the additional £20 million for the Governance and Transparency Fund. Many Members have mentioned the desperate need to find a way of improving governance, particularly in the countries of Africa. I shall return to that subject if I have time.
	I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke)—if I do not mention all the people in his constituency, they will be upset—who always makes a very sound speech. He must be congratulated on producing what is now an Act. As he said, this should become an annual debate, and I hope that the Secretary of State has taken that on board. He also made the very good point that we need to encourage all other nations that signed up to Gleneagles commitments to meet the target of 0.7 per cent. of gross national income. It is now a widely accepted United Nations target, but in the last speech or two we heard that one or two countries are falling short, and we must do all that we can to encourage them to meet their commitments. As the right hon. Gentleman said, the 0.7 per cent target is not the end of the matter. We hope that our GNI will continue to grow considerably so the budget will not be set in absolute terms but will grow in real terms as well. We hope that other countries' budgets for international development will grow in the same way. I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman said about the relationship between aid, trade and debt. I will come back to that issue if I have time.
	We heard an excellent speech from the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), the Chairman of the Select Committee; in fact we heard excellent speeches from several members of the Committee. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman and his staff on producing the report for the debate today. As he said, the report has added hugely to the quality of the debate. I congratulate him also on what his Committee is doing in going to some of the most difficult troublespots in the world. I, too, have visited Afghanistan and it is a very difficult country to get around in. It is not safe and I congratulate the Committee on going there, as one of the biggest jobs in the world is in Afghanistan. Will the Secretary of State consider having a powerful international co-ordinator so that all agencies—including USAID, which has a tendency to go round the country doing its own thing—are tied in together, along with all military efforts from NATO and the Americans?
	I shall give the House an example of where that is not happening at the moment. USAID suddenly announced that it wanted to spend many billions of dollars on the Kajaki dam project to produce hydroelectricity without first checking that the security situation would be good enough to get the heavy rotary pumps into place by road.
	I commend the proposal in the globalisation and poverty report produced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) for demonstrating how keenly important trade is to ensuring that we sustainably lift out of poverty some of the countries of the world. My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) said that we needed to make sure that aid was seen as a tool for getting middle-income countries out of poverty and towards developed country status.
	I have just come back from looking at economic partnership agreements in Uganda, as well as in the Caribbean and Pacific. Many of those Caribbean countries that are currently middle-income countries, with a little extra help, could be turned into developed countries and would not need any aid at all.
	Will the Minister be very kind and answer one or two questions about one of the most pressing issues of the day, economic partnership agreements? There is an absolute deadline of 31 December because of the EU's requirement to be WTO-compatible. In view of the Cotonou agreement, will he let the House know the current progress? Are we likely to have any or all of the six agreements signed by 31 December? I know that there is a critical meeting of the Commission and Ministers next week, so it may be slightly premature to ask the question. However, when I was in the Caribbean last week, the issue was very much in the balance and I met several Trade Ministers who were very unhappy. I hope that an agreement can be made that is satisfactory to all parties.
	The Cotonou agreement envisaged that if an EPA were signed, there would be a satisfactory package of development aid. The Trade Ministers were unhappy that at present—the Minister may be able to update us—no such package of aid has been agreed to help what in some of the smaller islands will be a difficult and painful transition.
	Let me give an example of the sort of thing that could happen under these economic partnership agreements. I recently met some Seychelles MPs. The Seychelles has a population of about 88,000. One major industry is tuna canning, which employs several hundred people, and the MPs were fearful that if the EPA goes through in its current form that entire industry would go to Thailand as it would not be cost-competitive. That would be a difficult transition, and we must bear such situations in mind. Is the Minister satisfied that sufficient impact assessments have been conducted in respect of such countries so that we know what effect the EPAs will have in the short to medium term?
	My final question in terms of the EPAs is on the interpretation of the WTO rules. One important element is the interpretation of what counts as the substantial opening up of markets. It has in the past been perceived that that would mean that the EU would open up 100 per cent. of its markets to some of the smaller African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, but in return they would open up 80 per cent. of their markets. It seems, however, that the ground has shifted in the past week or two—that the 80 per cent. figure has increased to 90 per cent. That would make a huge difference, and if the ground has shifted we must look carefully at whether the EU is operating double standards. It was asking for at least 8 per cent. of sensitive industries, mainly agriculture, to be excluded from the WTO arrangements—which is one of the reasons why the Hong Kong round has so far not succeeded—but on the other hand it seems to be pushing the ACP countries down from 20 per cent. to below 8 per cent. That would have an even more difficult effect on such countries. The EU cannot have it both ways.
	Many other issues have been raised. I agreed so much with most of what my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge) said that I was almost leaping up at every moment to intervene. He made some very important points. I know from a former role of mine how important it is for the different Departments to co-operate—for example, the Foreign Office, DFID, the Ministry of Defence and the new Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. That is especially the case in terms of some of the most difficult human rights issues in the world—those in Darfur and Zimbabwe, for example. The international community must try to put in place packages so that we can stop such countries collapsing into absolute chaos and causing extreme misery to their populations. Last week, I met Zimbabwean representatives of an excellent charity called ZANE. It is doing very good work in Zimbabwe, but it was harrowing to learn that because of the regime's measures forcing goods to be sold at the same price as two years ago there are no goods in most of the shops and children in particular are beginning to get into a very parlous state. We in the international community must find a mechanism whereby we can stop a country getting into such difficulties and causing such misery to their people.
	In an intervention on my hon. Friend's speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Newmark) mentioned the Portland Trust and microfinance. I travelled to Nigeria last year and witnessed one of DFID's microfinance projects. It was wonderful to see how some of the poorest people in the world in Kano were being encouraged to make rugs and thereby provide a little bit of money for themselves and their children. It is amazing how very small sums of money—guaranteed loans or even grants from DFID—can make such a huge difference.
	My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire was right to say that we need to look at some of the farming practices in the third world and the developed world—I say that coming from my background as a farmer, which I declare now. My hon. Friend is right that we must make sure that the developed world is not adopting practices that put some of the poorest farmers on the planet out of business. That is, of course, one of the reasons why the WTO round has so far failed. He mentioned the US subsidy to cotton of $4 billion, which is one of the principal reasons why it has failed to date.
	My hon. Friend was right about other things, too. I support the Fairtrade initiatives. While I was in the Caribbean I heard of the considerable effect in St. Lucia of the banana Fairtrade initiative. Sainsbury's now stocks only organic bananas, principally from St. Lucia, which has had a hugely beneficial effect on that country.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I entirely agree. We saw in Afghanistan the great difficulty in persuading farmers not to grow narcotics and to grow alternative crops. The hon. Lady is absolutely right—we should help farmers in Malawi and in many other countries to diversify into crops that are more environmentally friendly, or more human-friendly.
	I have just two minutes left and in that time, I want again to congratulate the Government on moving toward the 2013 UN target of 0.7 per cent. of gross national income. However, in moving toward it they need to consider two critical things, the first of which is the level of staffing. If they reduce the staff dealing with such projects in-country, they will inevitably have to direct more of their budget to the direct budget funding of the individual country concerned, or through multilateral agencies. Those are both good things in themselves, but as the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Sharma) rightly said, DFID has the best reputation in the world as an aid and international development provider, and we want to make sure that that is maintained. We should bask in its glory and congratulate all its staff on what they do, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) rightly said, we need to ensure that that money is being spent wisely. I suspect that the Government's independent watchdog will become merely a puppet of the Department, and I urge the Secretary of State to ensure that it is more independent. If it is critical in one or two areas, it is doing a thoroughly good job.
	I come back to the theme that the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill started, and which the hon. Member for Northampton, North finished with. Many of our constituents might be critical of the huge amount of money going into international development. I say to them that if they had come with me to Haiti last week, they would have seen the abject squalor and filth, the absolute poverty and the number of children just wandering around the streets with no education, and no education available to them. There are many other countries like that. A country such as ours, which has so much, should be well and truly prepared to provide its full share to those who have so little, and it should expect other countries to live up to their Gleneagles commitments and do the same.

Gareth Thomas: I join the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) in welcoming this extremely interesting debate. As he rightly said, there have been some very thoughtful contributions from Members in all parts of the House. I echo the comments of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and of the shadow Secretary of State in paying tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke) in taking the International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Bill through the House last year. As the Minister in the Department for International Development who had the pleasure of responding to debates on his Bill, I should tell the House that he was ferociously polite, always assiduous in pressing his case and extremely careful to take into account opinions from all parts of the House. I know that he consulted civil society thoroughly during the passage of the Bill, and its passing continues to be a tribute to his skill in navigating the complexities of this House.
	One area that my right hon. Friend particularly focused on throughout his contributions in the House, and in all the private discussions that we had, was his insistence that the Bill must ensure that there was year-on-year reporting on our progress to meet the UN goal of 0.7 per cent. of national income being spent on development assistance. I therefore welcome his comments about the outcome of the comprehensive spending review. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made clear, the Government will provide more than £9 billion of overseas aid a year by 2010, keeping us on track to meet the Prime Minister's commitment to achieve the 0.7 per cent. target by 2013.
	The hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) made a number of comments and asked a series of questions to which I shall return. I welcome his opening general praise, and the comments of several other hon. Members praising the Department and those who work outside it in the area of development. There are many highly committed people in civil society, in international institutions and in our Department, who often work in very dangerous places, and I join the House in paying tribute to their courage and passion.
	My hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow, North (Ann McKechin) and for Calder Valley (Chris McCafferty) asked a series of questions. Before I come to some of the specifics that they raised, may I take the opportunity to pay tribute to their work as the respective chairs of the all-party group on debt, aid and trade and the all-party group on population, development and reproductive health?
	My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North, asked, among other things, about the need for further innovative sources of finance to help tackle both international poverty and the adaptation needs flowing from the climate change challenges that we face. I reassure her that we are looking at exactly that issue, in part because of the run-up to the Bali considerations, and we will, of course, carefully examine what her all-party group has just published.
	The all-party group that my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley chairs has been a bright and shining star in the fight to get safe abortion facilities and the access to the sexual and reproductive health commodities that women across the developing world deserve. I hope that she will recognise and continue to champion my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's announcement of £100 million of further assistance to the United Nations Population Fund as an example of this Government's continuing commitment in the area of interest to her all-party group.
	I say gently to the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) that I cannot echo such positive comments in respect of her speech. I thought that it was disappointing. If she mentioned the millennium development goals at all, I for one missed it. Her speech certainly did not dwell on the plight of the 1 billion people who live on less than $1 a day or on the possible solutions to help tackle that poverty.

Lynne Featherstone: The mention of Saudi Arabia was with regard to corruption and how can we lecture the Africans. In fact, the hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) has just given me a very good report, "The Other Side of the Coin", which goes into how much corruption robs from development aid. That was the point that I was making. How can we lecture Africa?

Gareth Thomas: I am glad that the hon. Lady has been given help by others in the House: on the basis of her speech, I think that she needs it.
	A number of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge), entirely fairly highlighted the need to step up work on developing the private sector. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and Baroness Vadera are exploring the scope for further work by the Department in that area. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will join me in welcoming the Prime Minister's commitment to spend some £750 million on aid for trade, which I will air next week at the first ever global meeting on aid for trade, convened by the World Trade Organisation. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will see that as a particularly positive development.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Sharma) and the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) mentioned the importance of India in achieving the millennium development goals. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his long-standing interest in India and poverty there. He was right to draw attention to the fact that some 350 million poor people in India still live on less than $1 a day—more than the number of poor people who live in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. I assure my hon. Friend that we will continue to work for a reduction in poverty in India.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Mr. Joyce) highlighted the huge tensions in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. We continue to press for a political solution rather than a military one, for reasons that the House will understand. He and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North highlighted the terrible suffering of women in the DRC. In the time available, I cannot do justice to the scale of their suffering or to the full range of our response, but let me highlight one small example of the way in which we are trying to help. Through our aid for reproductive health care, some 500,000 women in the DRC are benefiting from much better access to such health care. I hope that that gives the House some reassurance about our continuing focus on that matter.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) praised the contribution of a series of NGOs that work to support orphans and vulnerable children. In turn, I praise her long-standing interest in that subject, her continuing questioning and her appetite to ensure that the Department makes more progress. Our commitment of 10 per cent. of our funding for aid spending on orphans and vulnerable children three years ago was designed to galvanise interest in the matter across the international donor spectrum and, crucially, in developing countries too. More donors have become interested and taken action, and more developing countries are prioritising and responding to the needs of orphans and vulnerable children. We will continue to keep the matter in view.
	I turn now to the particular questions asked by the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) that relate to my ministerial responsibilities. As he said, considerable attention is paid in civil society and in the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to economic partnership agreements. Although his questions were entirely understandable, he was right, I am afraid, that they are a little premature in light of the General Affairs and External Relations Council that will take place next week, at which the Trade Commissioner will report back on progress. The hon. Gentleman will perhaps not be surprised to hear that there has been considerable progress in those negotiations—more than we have seen before—in the past three weeks. The process is fluid, and a series of further negotiating meetings have taken place this week.
	A debate is due to take place in this House purely on the subject of economic partnership agreements, and it will enable us to delve into the detail of where progress has been made. Let me reassure the hon. Gentleman that we will continue to focus on the development dimension of economic partnership agreements. That is one reason why—from as far back as March 2005, when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was Trade Minister—we have championed the offer of 100 per cent. duty and quota-free access to the European unit for developing countries. We were delighted when, as a result of our pressure and the Trade Commissioner's appetite for the idea, a 100 per cent. duty and quota-free access offer was proposed back in April, albeit with transitional periods for just two products. I will of course continue to keep the House updated.

Gareth Thomas: I was going to come to the hon. Gentleman's point, but let me do so now. He referred to the excellent investigation by "Newsnight" journalists. He may have had the chance to see the whole piece, in which he will have seen me make a commitment to talk to EU colleagues. We will continue to do so, as I indicated on the programme. I should, however, add one thing. He is right to say that there is more that we can do here in the UK. We do not have to rely on the EU. We have asked a series of retailers to look at their supply chains in even more detail. It is one of the reasons why we want those firms that are not part of the ethical trading initiative to sign up. The experience in Uzbekistan should be a powerful demonstration of the need for all British retailers and indeed European retailers to look to their supply chains.
	The hon. Member for Banbury has followed the Doha round of talks particularly closely, given his past role. Indeed, I know that all Members of the House are interested in it. We are at a critical moment. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State alluded to the work that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has been doing. Indeed, a series of Ministers across Government have been using meetings with interlocutors not only in the EU but in the US, India, Brazil and other developing countries, including crucially the least developed countries, which ultimately have most to gain from a successful conclusion to the Doha round.
	The G4 will need to show more flexibility. We in the EU will need to show more flexibility. I believe that the Trade Commissioner is willing to do that. We will also need our allies in America to show more flexibility and we will need India and Brazil to show flexibility in the areas where they can do so. That will continue to be a priority for the House.
	The hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield and the one bright spot of the speech of the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green, as well as, indeed, the report of the International Development Committee, referred to the importance of climate change. It is certainly not a low priority for the Department for International Development. The last White Paper identified tackling climate change as one of the top priorities for the Department going forward, and that was reflected in March this year when the then Chancellor, now the Prime Minister, announced a joint DFID-DEFRA £800 million environmental transformation fund, which will provide aid for clean energy, avoided deforestation and adaptation.
	We are taking forward the implementation of that fund through the World Bank, working with a range of other organisations. We are seeking to secure other donors to put similar sums into a World Bank trust fund to help us take forward work on adaptation in the way that I have described. Crucially, we are also working with colleagues across Government to ensure a globally just post-2012 agreement. We are building analysis on what a fair outcome would mean and what the contribution of developing countries should be. We are also steadily increasing our work on climate change in our focal countries. I give the House just one example. We have committed to spend some £50 million to help improve the livelihoods of 32,000 families in Bangladesh by raising their homes above the one-in-100-year flood level. We are also spending £5 million on improving climate change information in Africa.
	I acknowledge the Select Committee's point that there is much more that we need to do in this area. There has been a significant scaling up of staff in DFID working on it; there will be more to come. I was disappointed by the shadow Secretary of State's rather low-key reaction to the appointment of the excellent David Peretz as chair of the new independent advisory committee on development impact. Once again, the shadow Secretary of State failed to acknowledge not only the talents of Mr. Peretz, but the plethora of other bodies that already monitor our spending directly or indirectly. There was no mention in the hon. Gentleman's speech of the powerful role that the National Audit Office plays in monitoring our spending or of the Public Accounts Committee.

Peter Viggers: I know that my constituents share my appreciation of the fact that I have this opportunity to raise in the House the issue of the future of the Daedalus airfield in my constituency. Part of the airfield falls within the borough of Fareham, and I am delighted my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) is here this evening, as I know that he shares my interest in this matter.
	The Government care about general aviation, which is most simply defined as all aviation of a civil nature other than scheduled air flights. I know that they care about it, because Ministers have said so. The hon. Member for Lincoln (Gillian Merron), the predecessor of the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), who will respond to this debate, is on record as having said at a conference on general aviation in November 2006:
	"Government have in the past failed to understand general aviation and its role in the community...It is vital that the interests of the general aviation sector are not ignored...We understand the value of the network, and we are looking at a policy statement on a national network of airfields...We recognise that we must strengthen general aviation as a vital asset with benefits for all of us."
	I hope that those sentiments will be continued. I see that the Minister is acquiescing.
	There is no more important issue for general aviation than the establishment and retention of suitable airfields, and the Daedalus site in Lee-on-the-Solent is just that. It entered service with the Royal Naval Air Service in 1917 and continued as a naval air station until 1996. Some of my earliest memories are of visiting the Daedalus station and watching the Fireflies, the Sea Furies, the Wyverns and the Gannets. They formed the basis of my enthusiasm for flying, which I later followed as a pilot in the Royal Air Force.
	The Daedalus site is an important part of the local community. In March 2006, the Maritime Coastguard Agency and the South East England Development Agency acquired the site for about £20 million. The Maritime Coastguard Agency took runway 0523, a blister hangar and the control tower, and the SEEDA operation took the rest of the site. The Maritime Coastguard Agency celebrated initially by spending between £500,000 and £1 million on building a rather unsightly new fence round its estate. I wonder whether the Minister can confirm the cost of that fence.
	Now I want to move forward and to consider the future of the Daedalus site. I should like to put this in its context. On the Gosport peninsula, there are about 40,000 working people, but only 19,000 jobs. The result is a tidal flow of people out of the peninsula and back each day. The paramount need is therefore for jobs in and around the peninsula. There is strong support for the development of Daedalus as a business park with an aviation and maritime engineering theme. Indeed, the SEEDA consultation has revealed that some 57 per cent. of the local population consulted would like to see aviation activity continue on the site, and some 60 per cent. would like to see jobs being developed there. The concept of a business park—of which I have some previous experience as a Minister—would fit well with the retention of the Daedalus site and its use for aviation and marine engineering. I hope that it will be possible to continue the aviation link, and to provide a forward link to the business park that so many of us would like to see.
	At the moment, the Daedalus site is being used by the police, whose Britten-Norman Defender fixed-wing, high-wing aircraft operate from runway 0323. The site is also being used by the air-sea rescue helicopter operated by Bristow on behalf of the coastguard. The Portsmouth Naval Gliding Club operates from Daedalus; many of my friends glide from Daedalus, as I do, and I am delighted that they have been able to make a longer-term lease arrangement to retain their interests there.
	Finally, the site is used by general aviation and 30 aircraft operate from Daedalus—there were many more. I am putting forward the general aviation interest this evening.
	 It being Six o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
	 Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Mr. Watson.]

Peter Viggers: That intervention will no doubt confuse anyone who may be watching our debate.
	The interests of general aviation are under threat because operators have been told that they must vacate the premises by Saturday 17 November, so I very much hope that even at this late stage the Minister can give us some hope for the future of general aviation at Daedalus.
	I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) has now joined us in the Chamber. He has taken a key interest in the issue and I am grateful to him for attending the debate.
	SEEDA's consultation led to the revelation that 63 per cent. of those consulted hoped that the site would be used to create job opportunities, 53 per cent. hoped that it would be linked to marine activity and 57 per cent. hoped that it would be involved with aviation, but only 7 per cent. felt that the site should be used for housing. When SEEDA decided on a study, it chose Erinaceous—a public listed company—to carry it out. I have four points about the study.
	First, there are some doubts as to the credibility of Erinaceous; the company has breached its banking covenants, shares are down from 389p in January to about 20p and the founders have been put on gardening leave, so there are some problems. Secondly, the main people involved at Daedalus—the general aviation interest—found it difficult to obtain a copy of the Erinaceous report. It was produced in July 2007 but not made available to the general aviation interest until 18 October, the date on which operators were given a month to vacate the site.
	Thirdly, paragraph 1.7 of the report states:
	"We confirm we know of no conflict of interest"—
	between the company and users of the site, yet one of the authors of the report is manager of Shoreham airport, which is owned by Erinaceous and is a competitor airfield on the south coast. Finally, the report merely offers alternatives and does not come to a firm conclusion.
	I am grateful to the individuals at SEEDA to whom I have spoken, including the chairman, for their support for general aviation at Daedalus, but ultimately it is not their judgment that applies. Others will decide about the future of general aviation, and although individuals at SEEDA are supportive they are not capable of overruling a decision.
	I have spoken to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which is directly involved as owner of the part of the site and through the operation from the site, on its behalf, of the coastguard helicopter. The agency is indirectly involved through the lease to the police force. As was made clear to me recently, the MCA is not involved in management; it has delegated that responsibility to the police.
	Among the dramatis personae is the Lee Flying Association—the group representing the general aviation interest. The association is profoundly concerned; it offered to control movements and run the airfield on a voluntary basis but the offer was rejected. Others involved include the Hampshire Microlight Flying Club, from which I received a letter today, pointing out:
	"The airfield at Lee has the potential to represent all that is good in a community based airfield. Until recently the field was home to a wide range of machines including gliders, helicopters, fixed wing and flexwing aircraft."
	The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association has been particularly assiduous in putting forward well-informed debate and argument on the issue. I have meetings and discussions with the association, and it states in a letter to me dated 12 November that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Hampshire police air support unit
	"inherited a complete operational aerodrome with all the necessary equipment to provide the basic air traffic service of an air/ground radio service. Both concerns would appear to have at Lee, staff able to provide an air/ground service, subject to an appropriate radio frequency being allocated and the operators being trained and certified as competent in accordance with CAA procedures. The cost of providing such a service at Lee is negligible."
	The association has been forceful in arguing in favour of the retention of general aviation.
	The Portsmouth Naval Gliding Club is strongly supportive of general aviation, and it is now fortunately secured in its position through the intervention of the Second Sea Lord, who has arranged for the lease to be prepared in its favour. The executive leader of Fareham borough council, Councillor Seán Woodward, has written a forceful letter to the chief constable of Hampshire constabulary, in which he advises that the
	"matter was considered at a Council meeting on 18 October, and it was agreed that I should write to you expressing our dismay and deep alarm at the way this decision has not only been taken, but also the communicated to the general aviation businesses at Daedalus."

Peter Viggers: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and his comments show that the concern is widespread. There is a very special ethos in south Hampshire, deriving from the link between the area and the Royal Navy in particular. There is a strong services tradition and a strong tradition of aviation and maritime engineering. Many of the companies in the area employ people who have been trained at some point by the Navy or by companies associated with the Navy. As has been pointed out by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, there is much stronger support for aviation use at Daedalus than it has discovered at any other location in the United Kingdom, and my hon. Friend's comments reflect that.
	The Hampshire police air support unit is the body that, under the lease between the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the police, has become the airfield manager, perhaps rather reluctantly. Perhaps the police did not set out as a mission statement to become an airfield manager, but that is what they have become. The airfield manager effectively is the manager of the police flight, Bob Ruprecht, whose attitude has been passed on to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
	The Minister wrote to me in a letter dated 5 July to say that "safety must remain paramount." Of course, it must. I am a trained pilot, and anyone who flies knows that safety comes first—it is the first thing that anyone involved in aviation thinks about—but I have to submit that this is not about safety; it is about liability. By becoming the airfield manager, the police have accepted liability for the operations that take place there, and no one has suggested that safety has suddenly deteriorated. There has not been a mixed-flying accident in 57 years of gliding operations at Daedalus, for instance. So the record is extremely good and nothing has changed. This is not about safety deteriorating at all; it is about the police authority realising and being advised by its lawyers that it has liability if anything goes wrong at Daedalus. On that basis, the decision has been taken to discontinue flying.
	The manager of the police unit explains in an e-mail:
	"In the medium to long term there maybe a future for Business and other Aviation as part of the development process, and I believe that SEEDA have that in mind to explore."
	The e-mail continues: however, it is not the core role of the Hampshire police air support unit or the Maritime and Coastguard Agency
	"to provide the infrastructure and investment"
	to operate general aviation in the meantime. No one could disagree with that—it is not the core role of the police or the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. However, I submit that the Minister—following the enthusiasm his predecessor showed for general aviation—does have a responsibility and a role to play in encouraging general aviation. It is his role to knock heads together to try to make sure that a satisfactory solution emerges.
	I have discussed procedures with those responsible. Daedalus is a Government aerodrome. Some people seem to have woken up to that fairly recently. The Air Navigation Order 2005 definition of a Government aerodrome is one that is
	"in the occupation of any Government Department or visiting force".
	Government strategy for Government aerodromes is as follows:
	"It is the policy of the MoD to encourage the use of active Government aerodromes by UK civil aircraft on inland flights, provided this is consistent with defence requirements and local interests".
	What is the Minister doing to encourage the use of this Government aerodrome by civil aviation interests?

Gerald Howarth: As my hon. Friend knows, as a currently practising aviator I fully support his campaign. The chief constable of Hampshire has told me that there are absolutely no security issues involved at all. There are no objections on security grounds to general aviation occupying the site. What my hon. Friend has just said about encouraging the use of Government-owned airfields is apposite, because there is no security consideration involved at all—it just seems to be a question of cost.

Jim Fitzpatrick: I entirely accept the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. My assumption—it can only be an assumption at this point, as I do not have the definitive reasons—is that the MCA acquired the site to protect the continuance of search-and-rescue helicopter operations from the site. The size of the site and the future lease of other aspects of the aerodrome would have been part of its business considerations in assessing what the MCA could get back from the Hampshire police authority, in order to justify public expenditure to provide the services that we expect. I have no further information on that.
	I know that this sounds as though we are absolving ourselves of responsibility but, sadly, we are not the decision-makers in this case. That lies firmly at the door of the Hampshire police authority and Hampshire constabulary, and the whole tenor of my response to the hon. Gentleman's very effective explanation, if I may say so, of the importance of Daedalus to the local community, which we fully support and understand, is that it is Hampshire constabulary's decision to say that the runway is no longer available. That is where the matter rests.
	I can reassure the House and the hon. Gentleman that the MCA's operation has not been affected by the decision to close the airfield to general aviation. I hope that he and the House will accept that the decision taken by the police is their decision.

Gerald Howarth: The Minister referred to the review of light aviation airfields around the country. Does he accept that if this airfield were to close, one fewer facility would be available to the network that he is anxious to create throughout the country? Secondly, will he tell us what safety facilities would need to be in place to satisfy the Hampshire authority?

Jim Fitzpatrick: In response to the first point, as I mentioned earlier, following the Civil Aviation Authority's review, we are in the course of reflecting on whether we should publish the specific policy statement in support of general aviation. If we are minded to go down that path, it is likely to occur some time next year.
	On the second question, my understanding is that the decision to close the airfield to general aviation requires the managers of the airfield, Hampshire constabulary, to conduct a risk assessment. It is very much a matter for them to determine, on the basis of that assessment, whether operations can continue. That is why I have stressed that this is very much their decision. I would expect them to be able to supply the appropriate documentation to interested parties.
	We are committed to general aviation and we certainly recognise and acknowledge the role that general aviation plays in the UK economy. Indeed, I articulated that a few moments ago in the course of my remarks. The outcome is disappointing and I hear what the hon. Member for Gosport says about the shortage of notice, which just adds to the frustration people feel when they have not had an opportunity to put their case as fairly and squarely as they would otherwise have done. One cannot tell whether that would have assuaged them in some way.
	I fully understand and expect that the campaign will not stop here. This evening's debate has at least put down another marker. I would be very surprised if those who are centrally involved in this matter do not pay attention to the comments of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues or, indeed, to my response for the Government. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will have some further success, following his success in securing this debate. I fully acknowledge, as I say, that this is not going to be the end of the matter, but from the Government's point of view, we are not the ones who took the decision and we do not have the locus to determine any change to it. I apologise, but I cannot assist the hon. Gentleman in the way that he hoped I would when he tabled this debate.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven minutes past Six o'clock.